Whiner..........

I was in a really bad mood yesterday. And I woke up in a bad mood this morning. Mostly it was because it appears that everyone around me is full of fabulous news, exciting new opportunities, and big plans. And I feel like I'm spinning my wheels waiting for something to happen, knowing it will not unless I take action, and being pissed off that I'm too busy to do anything about it.

It doesn't help that this week has been particularly busy, and by that I mean there have been evening obligations which mean getting home much later. Which means no time to cook dinner. Which means eating crap food. Which means no time to work out. Which means feeling even worse about eating crap food. And so the cycle goes.

Also, I work part time but I almost never come home after work. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I came home and actually had half a day to do what I wanted/needed to do. Most days I am picking someone up right after work for an appointment or other obligation, then often repeating that cycle until at least dinner time, usually arriving home with starving offspring and no plan for dinner. By the time I get everyone fed, everything cleaned up, make lunches for the next day, and try to squeeze in a few extracurriculars like laundry or paying bills, it's 10 p.m. and time for bed again. Not that I ever go to sleep around 10 p.m. No, it's a good night if I am in the vicinity of my bedroom by 10 p.m. Sleep happens around 11:30 p.m.. And ends at 6:30 a.m. Blarg.

So, yesterday, I was feeling particularly sorry for myself because a couple of friends, and several bloggers I follow are experiencing success with their writing (i.e. book deals, paid gigs, etc.) and my writing is currently confined to this blog, and nothing else. What I really WANT is to write for pay, write a book, have time to write, write every day. But I have this job. And this family. And blah, blah, blah. If I knew it wouldn't strap us financially, I'd quit my job in a New York minute and write full-time. Because being a writer, you have to write. A lot. And often. And yesterday, my day went like this:
6:30 a.m. Alarm goes off. Lay in bed till 6:45 ish. Pick up phone and scroll through email, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
7:05 a.m. Get ass out of bed and into shower.
7:15 a.m. Get dressed. Change clothes five times, even though I had a basic idea of what I'd wear the night before (capris since it was going to be warm out).
7:45 a.m. Finally go downstairs, and lament, once again, that I never have time for breakfast and should be leaving for work right now, or five minutes ago.
8:00 a.m. Actually make it out the door even though I'm technically supposed to be at work right now. Know I can be a half hour late at most because I stay a half hour extra once a week for planning. Still get to work ten minutes after "grace period."
1:15 p.m. Leave work late to make up for late arrival this morning.
1:35 p.m. Arrive at school to pick up Hannah, sit in car finishing lunch for ten minutes.
1:45 p.m. Meet with Hannah and her teacher.
2:00 p.m. Leave school, go home, make phone calls, check email, clean up dishes, make snacks, fill water bottles, gather stuff for rehearsal, etc. Arlie arrives home.
3:00 p.m. Leave to pick up Harrison.
3:15 p.m. Pick up Harrison, drive to high school for musical rehearsal.
3:30 p.m. Drop all three kids off at rehearsal. Make a beeline out of there before someone asks me to volunteer.
3:40 p.m. Drive to consignment shop. Enjoy some browsing/shopping while kids are at rehearsal. (Note: I thought about bringing my laptop with me and going to Starbucks to write, but by the time I got the wifi working, it would be nearly time to go back to get them and chances are I'd be in the middle of writing something truly sensational. Ha!). Buy two dresses and three shirts, and a sensational evening gown/prom dress that was on the clearance rack (and by that I mean I paid TWO DOLLARS FOR IT, even though it had never been work and still had the original tags attached). With store credit for consigning, pay $2.80 for everything. Feel smug.
4:30 p.m. Drive back to the high school and wait for kids to finish rehearsal. Check email, FB and Twitter on phone. Make lists. Eat veggies from my lunch because I'm supposed to be eating more veggies. Realize that eating a bunch of cherry tomatoes leaves tomato skin in your teeth and spit that out for the next ten minutes.
5:15 p.m. Finally leave high school after kids socialize too long.
5:25 p.m. Pick up teriyaki for dinner.
6:05 p.m. Arrive home, rip open containers, eat teriyaki standing up at counter, while trying to catch up with Jeff.
6:15 p.m. Grab keys, head out with Harrison for band practice, while Jeff prepares to head out with Arlie for   driver's ed final drive.
6:30 p.m. Drop Harrison off, head to Target to buy sports bras and cat litter.
7:00 p.m. Really only buy sports bras and cat litter, don't even browse at Target, leave with minimum purchase (gasp!).
7:05 p.m. Go to Starbucks inside Barnes and Noble. Order iced mocha and toffee crunch bar. Remember when I was addicted to toffee crunch bars when they used to be in every Starbucks. Wonder why they stopped carrying them. Wish I hadn't discovered these. Hello, new pastry I don't need!
7:30 p.m. Back to band practice, waiting for Harrison. Check email and FB on phone.
8:00 p.m. Harrison comes out to car, head home stopping by neighborhood with good sunset views to snap a few pictures of the sunset.
8:30 p.m. Home. Clean up. Make lunches. Realize how exhausted I am. Pack up laptop, portable office, purse and reading material and head upstairs - if I have to do work, still, might as well do it from the comfort of my bed.
9:10 p.m. In bed surrounded by bills. Do paperwork and bills for over an hour.
10:30 p.m. See low bank balance, become depressed, decide I've paid enough bills and push everything off bed to settle in for the night.
11:30 p.m. Turn off light after "winding down" playing Solitaire on my Kindle for an hour (!)
6:30 a.m. Start all over again.

So, see? When am I supposed to write? And how am I supposed to write with all that chaos going on? Or without sitting in a chair, with a cup of tea and a beautiful view outside my window? Gah! Not to mention, I did not have time to eat healthy, work out, or do any type of housework (badly needed) in that whole day. So, I went to bed feeling defeated, unfulfilled, and fat.

Plus, when I took my capris off, the zipper broke! Seriously, I just unzipped them and saw something fly across the room. Turns out it was two teeth off my zipper. The zipper on one of the FEW pairs of capris that actually fit me. Great. And who really can fix a zipper? Not me! I'm certainly not going to pay anyone to fix the zipper on a 10.99 pair of capris I got at Ross. But am I pissed off that a pair of pants that actually fits my ass are now junk? Of course I am!

Also, when I tried to talk to Jeff about how I was feeling, he just made some stupid "man" comment like "well, you have to MAKE time" which is about my least favorite phrase in the world.

So, I woke up in the same bad mood I went to bed in. I repeated yesterday, right down to changing my clothes five times (again, after I already knew which pants I was going to wear!). I did NOT want to go to work, and moved quite slowly (although not as slowly as yesterday - I made it to work a little less late than the day before - still not on time - ugh!).

And when I got there, I saw this through the sunlight in the door's window:

Mrs. Moo. As in cow. As in fat. Great. Even my classroom door is mocking me! But the sun was shining. And it was (finally!) warm outside. And Thursdays are pretty straightforward, easy days in the classroom.

And the day actually did turn out o.k. My class was fairly well-behaved, work went fast, I still had to pick up a kid after school, but I had time to stop and get coffees for us first (ok, yes, I went back to the B&N Starbucks just so I could have another toffee-crunch bar!). The doctor appointment didn't take very long, and I had time to go home for a half hour and check my email and print out some stuff before heading back out for my evening obligation.

Which was getting my hair done. Which is like therapy and "me" time rolled into one. Thank you, Marie, my wonderful hairdresser!

And when I left, I had new hair, the sun was just starting to set, and on the drive home, as I crested a hill, I saw the Olympic mountains in full glory bathed in the early evening sun and I actually said out loud "God, those are beautiful mountains!"

And then I got Taco Time for dinner and stopped at Dairy Queen at the request of Arlie and Hannah for Blizzards and a Dilly Bar for me.

So, there's still the fat thing. But I'm working on that.