what the heck, bro

Geezus, it's been two years since I last blogged.

What do I even have to say anymore? I'm basically a boring person right now.
The title of my blog went from "divorce totally sucks" to "starting over." 
I'm past both of those points in my life.
We did just move to Arkansas so we ARE starting over but again, I'm just so boring right now.

Life used to be fun, didn't it? I went back to reread some of my blog posts and oh my gosh, we were having so much fun. I don't understand why we had so much fun then and why we're not having as much fun now. -sigh- I miss my friends. What the heckin' heck happened to us?

Pam briefly mentioned a friend of hers who she knows she can always call if she wants to go out and have a good time. I need one of those friends locally - who is just a DAB™ (down-ass bitch). I don't want to go out all the time but when I do, I like fun people to go with. 

^^^^That's how I feel about myself right now. 

"We get it, Rachel. You're bored...," I can hear you saying, rolling your eyes at me. 

I'm just saying: what are we even doing with our lives right now?!

This is why I stopped blogging. My life got super boring. -sigh-

I'll have something more exciting for you next time. 

I'm such a complainer.

    Today I am feeling bummed because I'm almost 30 and I'm not where I want to be in life. At all. I have dreams, goals, and desires. Sometimes I feel like I'm walking in a circle, not actually going anywhere.

   That's not true. I feel like I end up further away than where I started.

   One personality trait I have that I hate is that I make hasty decisions. I'll decide I want to do something, do it, and then regret making the decision. I don't always regret the hasty decisions I make but you don't always shoot yourself in the head while playing Russian Roulette either.

    I don't know what I'm waiting for or what I want or even what I expect.

    I'm such a complainer. Call the wambulance.

Part-Time Everything.

I'm up late highlighting and planning my classes this fall (and making a rough estimate about which classes I might want to take next Spring). I really want to take a grant writing class AND I want to take some public administration classes. I'm thinking about emailing my advisor and talking to him about it. I'm excited about the classes I want to take and I hope I get to take them (like demography and policy analysis).

I have a full schedule for the month of June. June is my test to see if I can pull off full-time mom, full-time job, full-time school. I'm afraid I'll end up being a part-time everything.

Part of me feels extremely guilty about having to work. It's not like I'm CHOOSING to work, we need my income. I would choose to work though, I think because I enjoy it.

Why should I feel so guilty though? If a man says he doesn't want to stay home with the kids, that's perfectly fine. Do they feel guilt about it? I don't know. I can't speak for the men of the world but I do know that we as women feel guilt about leaving our children. I feel so bad for my Littlest Princess. I wonder if she's going to end up the same way as my other children (well-behaved, for one thing) because I was home to give them guidance, whereas I'm going to be at work during the day when the Littlest Princess will need guidance. I stress out about that.

I just feel extremely guilty about it. I love my girls so much but my children can't be my whole life. Children (and relationships) are supposed to ENRICH your life, not BE your life. I need something for myself or else I won't be good for anyone -- I'll get depressed and unhappy. It's like on airplanes when they say to secure your own air-thing first before you help anyone else -- it's because if you aren't taking care of yourself, you can't help anyone else sufficiently.

I AM excited about my classes -- AND my new job. I'm working on this guilt. Moms work all the time and if I try hard enough and love enough and don't take anything for granted, perhaps my Littlest Princess won't end up being the 'screwed up' one because her mother worked while she was growing up.

that is just so typically me...

We finally got Arry's crib and baby monitor. It has one of those sensors that goes under the mattress and if she stops breathing, it will sound an alarm. Now I'm downstairs and she's upstairs in bed -- it's weird. It's weird for her to be up there without me. I've tested the sensor before so I know it works, I know it will go off and I'm able to be downstairs without stressing out. It's SO hard not to go upstairs and check on her though.

So I'm liking my new job. I like my job, I like the people, and the kids are even not that bad. I always imagined working with kids would be awful but these guys are proving my imagination wrong. You can tell the staff really care about the kids -- even when it's hard to care sometimes. It truly matters to them what they are teaching. And I had the best time with the kids this past week. So yeah, I like my job.
The biggest and single issue is that I don't make nearly enough money or get enough hours to do very much in my household. It would be a great job if I had a spouse whose income paid the bills and my money was just extra. But as a team unit, I don't make nearly enough.
So I don't know.

It's all about perspective

At least I have a job -- and it will be okay.

One part of *RESOLUTION 2014* was to volunteer locally. I found an organization to volunteer my time and I had my first meeting this past Thursday. It's a religious group who organizes it and if anyone knows me, I'm not a religious person. I have my beliefs but they are mine. I don't judge anyone else for their beliefs, but I don't want to be preached to.
ANYWAY, nobody preached to me - thankfully. They were just really nice people who were serious about the work they were doing with their group. During the meeting, I was so excited for the work they are doing that I decided that I definitely want to be a part of it. My beau is hesitant because he thinks I'm already busy enough. Perhaps he's right but I want to be involved in this. It's important to me and I'm excited.


There were more organizations that I wanted to volunteer at but before I attempt to do that, I have to make sure each individual thing will fit into my schedule (including time with my kids and my beau -- because that's important to me too). Once my college classes start (on the 20th!), my schedule will get tighter. I'm optimistic that I will find time for everything that is important to me.

I want to get my girls into some kind of activity again. I'm thinking dance this time. AND I'm trying to get their summer camps figured out - if they're going to be in Arkansas or with me. Fingers crossed that works out.

I'm hopeful about 2014. It hasn't been too shabby yet. I'm resolved to achieve all my resolutions this year. I made my goals attainable on purpose -- because I want to accomplish them. I can do it. They aren't unrealistically unachievable. I got this.

I'm right on top of that, Rose!

I've been watching a lot of The Good Wife on Hulu. I'm trying to catch up and I'm finally on season four. It has the guy from 'Don't Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead' -- he played Brian who worked at Clown Dog. Sue-Ellen (the main character) worked there for about a minute before she quit. Not that I blamed her, her manager was obnoxious BUT he was probably better than her bosses boyfriend who kept sexually harassing her once she got a different job.


I guess I should back up. If you've never seen the movie, let me give you the run-down: Sue-Ellen is a seventeen year old girl played by Christina Applegate whose summer plans were ruined by her (in my opinion) neglectful mother. Her mom decides to go out of the country with her boyfriend leaving her FIVE children (Sue-Ellen, Kenny, Zach, Melissa, and Walter) with an old-ass babysitter who seems really sweet at first. I don't use the term "old-ass" lightly, y'all. She. Was. Old. 
       This old lady ends up being a tyrant so when she dies in her sleep, the kids don't mourn her. They seem alarmed but barely. Instead they do what I imagine all kids would do in this situation -- they wrap her up and decide to put her on the steps of a funeral home -- unknowingly leaving all the money their mom had left them for the whole summer with the old woman. 
       Once this fact is discovered, fight or flight kicks in and Sue-Ellen gets a job at Clown Dog -- a local chili dog fast food place. She meets Bryan there but she ends up quitting because she hates it. Since this is pre-internet, pre-credit checks to get a job, she completely fakes her resume and applies for a job as a receptionist at "General Apparel West"  but gets a different (awesome) job instead because her resume is so impressive. 
       She lives a double life of working mom/teenager for a while until it all ends up blowing up in her face. But they all live happily ever after -- except the babysitter. 

Now that you're all caught up, I have to say that I dream of a day when a seventeen year old could make up a completely fabricated resume and land an awesome job that probably paid like a real adult job and nobody blinked an eye (except David Duchovney - who was also in this movie). Seriously. I miss the '90s. 

RANDOM BUT TRUE STORY: I have this project I'm doing at work that involves a huge book and anytime I hold it, I imagine I'm holding the QED Report. And then I laugh at myself for being so awesome.

ANYWAY, I've been watching a lot of Good Wife and staring at Bryan from Clown Dog - AKA "Will Gardner" (that's his name on the show) and feeling like, "I could totally be a lawyer..."
I'm crazy like that though. I watched "Orange is the New Black" and thought, "Yeah... I could totally handle prison..."
NO. NO, I CAN'T! I seriously can't handle prison. What is wrong with me that I get these ideas in my head and then I think these things?
Perhaps I could go to law school. Am I smart enough? Sure. Is it likely that I'd get halfway through and give up? Sure.
And anyway, I'm living in this law school/Good Wife fantasy where all the lawyers are as attractive as the ones on the show.
I present to you EXHIBIT A:

Matt Czuchry as Cary Agos -- and apparently he's 36, Ladies and Gentleman... chew on that. 

EXHIBIT B:

Get him his Clown Dog uniform.

I'm sure I could find some legal trouble to get into if real life lawyers looked like this - and I'm sure more women would be in law school instead of acting.

-SIGH- Alls I'm saying is, it's hard to get job in this economy.