holiday spirit?

Today on Facebook I saw that tons of people who have their Christmas trees up, are doing family portraits, and all that good holiday jazz!! This is a totally normal American tradition that I'm all for! I'm just not in the holiday spirit yet.

So lets get real. Is my family the only family that is so fucking broke?! God, it's really killing me. We moved from a small town in Idaho last spring, to sunny Oxnard SoCal. I love it here, I do. But constant mid 60-70 degree weather is not helping. Also, the whole having like literally $13 is killing us. Everyone tells you that money issues can cause divorce. We definitely are feeling the strain on our relationship. The point of this blog is not to talk about all the perfect, beautiful moments in life. Post perfect family photos. Talk about how amazing being a mom is 100% of the time. I cannot even begin to tell you how hard financial struggles affect a relationship. There have been many tense conversations in this home, and sometimes even arguments. Tears are almost always shed during those times, mine of course. Christmas just seems to remind me of all the things I may or may no be able to give my children. It reminds me how Sean and I will have to totally short change ourselves to make good things happen for the kids. THIS IS DEPRESSING. Whether this is something that you personally experience - or not, these kinds of financial problems are real. This happens to real people, people you probably know. The ones with all the perfect pictures with the perfect captions. I talk alot about how we need to remember that we should be grateful for the things we have, like family, shelter, food, friends. But when you have bills that you are trying to split between paychecks, and tonsss of sacrifices that you are making constantly just to get by, it is so easy to forget that. Does money buy happiness? Maybe it does. How happy are you when you have to figure out how to get by day by day? 

Tonight, after a day of shit (immodium and phenergan all day baby), I got the chance to lay down with my oldest son, Kieran. And by "I got the chance", I mean - "my children were hysterical for no apparent reason, yelling would get me nowhere, so I decided to just lay with him and rub his back, and cry from stress under my breath". Kieran's birthday is the day after Christmas. His due date was mid Jan, but I was severely gestational diabetic so I was to be induced Dec. 27, instead went into labor Christamas day, and after 30 some hours of hell, he came the 26th. He was not the prettiest little thing because he was stuck under my pelvic bone for hours so he was bruised, blue, and went straight to the NICU. But I loved him. Before I saw him I loved him. And now we are coming up on his 5th birthday. He is tall and handsome, scary smart. A pain in the ass a lot of the time, but also a very sensitive boy. He looks like his daddy, has my emotions, Sean's intelligence, and my extrememly long eyelashes. But a bday the day after Xmas? When do we catch a break?!

Sean and I were married Dec. 30th 2006. He was straight outta bootcamp/techschool, and it was a "we are in love, immature, but to be together we need to get married so I can go to his first station". We truly, truly were in love. But our wedding happened fast. A few months after being married I had the stomach flu. It was awful, for over a week. At some point, someone told us that maybe the barfing is not the stomach flu.....I took a test that night. ++!! We weren't ready, but that's just something that can potentially happen in your honeymoon phase (go get on birth control and buy condoms now.). We weren't ready but we were happy! "It's something we made, what a miracle this is!", I thought as a barfed every morning all day everyday for 14 weeks. I was scared. I was 20, in fucking Mt. Home Idaho, just married, and knocked up.  At around 15 weeks, a blood test came back saying that the baby I was carrying may have Down Syndrome. Now what? We weren't ready for a child in our lives, let alone one that will need constant care, and a human that we may have to care for forever. We talked about whether or not we could go through. We had so much pressure on us. One family telling us that giving away or aborting our baby is a sin, and another side of the family who was totally supportive of WHATEVER we chose. We were faced with the impossible chances that we may not be able to do this, and we were going to have to make a decision that was best for us, the child, our future. So at 16 weeks I had an amniocentisis. Super scary procedure were they take out amniotic fluid from the uterus by sticking a huge needle in your belly. After 4 awful weeks, the test results were in. The baby was fine, healthy, and a boy. Our little oopsie was going to be okay.

Since Sean and my first Christmas we spent preparing for a baby, we hardly prepared for Christmas. He was a low ranking Airman, and we had nothing. We didn't even have our crib until about a week before he came. And we were really blessed to know someone who handed down tons of baby clothes to us. Everything fell into place. The only decoration we had in the whole house was one of those stupid fucking fake tree/plant/things that I got from Walmart, just like everyone else has at some point in their lives. We put a strand of lights on it, and hung the maybe 10 ornaments that my mom gave me from my childhood, and called it a Christmas tree. I remember sitting at the computer, taking selfies of big ol me, Sean, and our first furbabies Spike and Buffy, and having that little tree sitting right next to the desk. We laughed, it was a joke. But I remember sitting on our shitty Walmart futon, knitting, getting ready for Kieran to make his way into the world, looking at the lights on the tree, and feeling the warmth it brought to me. We we were so happy with that shitty tree.

So why am I stressing now? We were worse off then than we are now. Tonight I need to take a second and think about this. The tree will get put up when it gets put up. But for right now, I'm going to say "fuck decorating", I am broke, I am sick, we have issues, but we are here, together, in sunny SoCal, and somehow I am going to get past the material things that are supposed to bring us joy during the holiday season, and try and soak in what I have, and try and teach that to my boys.

Today was a total struggle. But I'm going to go to sleep thinking about our nothing of a tree from 5 years ago, and remember what a blessing these boys are to me, and tomorrow work on my budget. 

Good night :)

So...

So this blog is going to undergo some changes. I still love cooking and baking and probably will still talk about food and maybe even share a few more recipes, but my life has-and is, going through some big changes. So in all honestly I need a place to bitch, share my happiness, pictures, whatever I want really. This is my selfish page.  I need this. A journal? A place to post random crap, swear if I want to, and I hope to get something out of my ramblings. Please don't follow if you are no longer interested.

I don't know where to start..

Today is Thanksgiving. Well, was. It's 3am. I spent the whole day before Thanksgiving cooking. I made a huge turkey, that I had made an herb butter to rub under the skin, then I rubbed the outside of the skin with regular vegetable oil, rubbed with salt and pepper. I made from scratch stuffing. I even made my own bread to let go stale to make it. It was bacon and leek stuffing, and it turned out amazing. I made mashed potatoes...that's a must, probably my favorite food of all time! lol. I made an apple pie, rolls. Really it was absolutely ridiculous! Trying to take on so much at once. But when I cook I get in my groove. I put my laptop in the kitchen and pulled up my favorite Spotify playlist, cleverly titled "this is my shiiit right huurr" :D I listened to music, I chopped, kneaded, sauteed and roasted while listening to Weezy, Nicki, 2 Chainz, Lady Gaga. It was fun. The boys would come in and snitch, as all children (and adults, but shhhhhh!) do. They'd dance with me. We had some very stressful and happy moments preparing for this day of thanks. However, by the time everything was done and our really good friend came over, I was too tired to even fucking eat. I wanted to sit. Cry. After we all ate, boys went to bed, cleaned up a little, and I felt like I was so tired I could just die. But we watched a movie. Stardust. Really good, creative, lovable movie. The hubs went to bed and I thought I'd sit up and watch Private Practice on Netflix and crochet for a bit. But now I can't sleep. Not that I don't want to, just can't. I suppose I shouldn't be to surprised that I may or may not be having some insomnia. For the last month at least I've had trouble sleeping so I just stay up, it's alot less frustrating. I'm prescribed Ambien but it's a risky med as far as addiction goes and that's the last thing I need. Plus it just knocks me out, and I worry if one of the boys woke up crying I'd just sleep through it. That really scares me. So I avoid it.
Today was a really hard day for me. I've been married going on 6 years next month...and married to the military at that. Our first base was Idaho, now SoCal. I love the places we've been and will go. But being away from family never gets easier. I missed my mom and dad the most. The holidays are the hardest. Thanksgiving is a holiday my family takes very seriously. The day before, my mom and grandma do what I did-and I miss that. I miss helping. I miss sitting down all proper for one meal where we pass the food around family style, we all say what we're grateful for. It is the perfect holiday. My mom and my grandma are the best, most amazing hostesses. Since living out of state, I have really prided myself on carrying on that tradition. Being a good host seems to run in my blood. So all the time I was cooking, all I could think was that it didn't feel right doing it alone. It's just hard.

It's no secret that I have been, and currently am going through treatment for major depression, PTSD, panic and anxiety disorder and a few other things. Plus in 2010 I was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis. Sarcoidosis is a disease with no cure. The easiest way to describe the disease is to say it's like a combination of cancer and an autoimmune disease. Most people who have this disease are over 40, women, African American....not a mid twenty year old white female. Most people only have one or two symptoms. Common symptoms include very mild joint pain, migraines, bone pain, alls sorts of crazy stuff. The disease is usually diagnosed by biopsy, in the lungs. Sarcoidosis normally affects the lungs and heart, and granulomas can be seen on a CT scan and they are biopsied. Up until a few years ago this was considered a rare disease. I have every single possible symptom imaginable. My joint pain is out of control, we treat it like RA, but the only thing that helps is steroids. Besides arthritis, I have bone pain, occasional loss of sight-usually in my lower left eye, migraines, nausea-vommiting, chronic kidney stones, and intense muscle pain. In the last few years I've had a handful of surgeries...my gallbladder came out, as well as my appendix. I had masses removed off my forehead and scalp, and lithotripsy. Annnnd lastly I had to have an endometrial ablation and tubal ligation. I am hoping that I am a candidate for lithotripsy again because I will truly lose my mind if I pass another stone. The psychiatric stuff I will explain some other time. Can't go there now.
Soooo.....long story short, I physically and mentally felt like absolute shit today, but you know what? I made it. One more day. One day at a time.

I truly hope that everyone had a wonderful day with family and/or friends...even if you had to bust your ass for two day to make everything perfect. Despite all that bullshit, I have much to be thankful for. I have two little boys who light up my day and make everything worth it, a wonderful family, my cats, Buffy. A roof over our head, food in our fridge, and more luxuries than we need. I am thankful for medicine. The one thing no doctor I've ever seen has ever been able to tell me is how this disease could possibly affect how long I live-if it could one day become fatal, what my quality of life will be, and managing my chronic pain has been a challenge. For me, for my kids, my husband, my family, all those who've seen me suffer, be laid out on the couch for weeks after surgery, and basically become disabled. But today I lived. The days before I lived I had some very joyous moments. I have loved and been loved and continue to be loved, and for all that-I am thankful.

More to come.

G'night/morning/whatev.  :D