This is what I get for stealing...

Check this out:
Last week I was cleaning the credit union. They have plaques on the wall from the city complementing them on being so "green", a pat on the back for all their recycling.
What a crock. I've thrown out at least 47 acres of forest in the 7 (ack) years I've been cleaning there twice-weekly (is that biweekly? or is biweekly every OTHER week?).
Last Wednesday was the best.
The people who work there have seen me many times. I'm not a huge brawny man, or a huge brawny woman for that matter. Even when I was pregnant they'd try to leave huge boxes of crap for me to carry that I would refuse with a sticky note saying: Can't carry this, I'm 8 months pregnant.
So back to last Wednesday. The oh-so-"green" credit union folks left me 8 boxes of brochures with the word TRASH written on each box. Inside each box was 5,000 brochures that had expired. They weighed about 25 pounds each. Those stupid people couldn't be bothered to move them near the door to make it a little easier on me. Instead they left them in two stacks in the farthest corner from any exit.
I was pissed. But I couldn't throw them away with a clear conscience. Not to mention heaving them over my head into the 6 foot tall dumpster would've sucked.
So I backed up the old Vulva station wagon and packed each of the 8 boxes into the back and drove to the recycling place near our house.
I threw in each box, one by one. I could feel my halo grow a little brighter with each trip back to the recycling dumpster full of paper goods. I tried not to smirk as I walked tall to my car full of righteousness. "I am a GOOD person!" I thought to myself.
As I threw in the last box and began to walk to my car, I noticed a letter in the dumpster. A hand-written letter on nice stationary. In this time of quick, curt emails, seeing hand-writing on real stationary is refreshing. Without even thinking, I grabbed the letter, folded it tight and stuffed it into my pocket while taking a quick look around to assess whether anyone was around watching me.

I drove home slowly, feeling bad for taking the letter. It wasn't mine. Whoever it belonged to was clearly done with it. I pondered the contents. Really hoping it was in English and REALLY hoping it was something steamy.

Once in my driveway I pulled it out and began to read. My face fell in disbelief.
I steal an anonymous letter and find that I could've written the damn thing myself.
The similarities are just NOT FAIR.

To summarize: a woman wrote a friend she hasn't seen in forever to share a recipe; to say older child (same age as my older child) is doing great with reading and enjoys writing stories; to say younger child (same age as my younger child) is just starting to be potty trained; to say that while she and her husband are getting along well, they have hardly anytime alone together but are "hanging in there" and hope for a vacation alone together in 3-4 years.
That's it. XOXOXO

WTF? How not fair to read an anonymous letter that so mirrors my own life. No sex, no lies, no espionage.... That's what I get for stealing.

written yesterday, posted today

This morning I am GASP!! becoming an actual member of an actual Christian church!!
It's a good thing, really.

I was raised Catholic. First Communion, white dress and praying hands (with rosary accessory) at age 7 and thought I was the next Virgin M. Virgin Mandy. Hmm.
At any rate, once a little older, I learned about some of the not so nice things the Catholic church has been involved in over the centuries. And then of course, the anti-abortion issue, the anti contraceptive issue, the way the Vatican is run like Las Vegas, etc. and I just had to drop the whole thing like hot, rotten fish.

But I missed the good, good feeling I got from church and from my own personal prayer. (I always loved going to the births of the Catholic women as an apprentice. Their houses were filled with gold icons of saints and the cross and CDs of monks chanting while the woman moaned in labor.)It's been a long road trying to find a spiritual niche that felt right for me but I'm pretty happy with what I have found. So after going to this church for 2 years, I'm becoming a member. And I'm excited about it.

So there you go. I'm out of the closet.

I am officially coming out as a Christian! But not to fear, I still talk trash like a sailor, have an IUD, have kinky sex, drink beer, smoke the occasional cigarette at a party, and yell at my children (like the rest of the Christians) -- the difference is, I don't DENY it!
(Okay, so that WAS talking trash)

But it feels like a good thing. Like one of those velour blankets on a cold night when your bones hurt.

tax blogging in Hindi

Wow, Blogger has a new thing where you can blog in Hindi. You type the English equivalent and it translates into Hindi for you. Very tempting. Just think of the expanded readership I could bore, updating about my busy, but not very exciting life.
Hindi *looks* lovely, for what its worth.

Here's what's new:
Waiting for a sweet primip to go into labor while hoping my lady with baby #3 doesn't go early. My assistant got her doula births out of the way, which makes me much more relaxed. While I could definitely find a last-minute back up assistant, it would've been someone my client has not met yet and I would hate that.

My mother-in-law started chemo yesterday. She's had our daughter at her house for the last 3 days staying the night. They get along beautifully and have lots of fun and chill time together. It's a nice break for S not having E interrupt her all the time. It also gives her a chance at good one-on-one time with another adult. While there she's lost a tooth, I'm told.
My mother-in-law will have a mastectomy performed when chemo is done.
Scary stuff. Pray she escapes this cancer.

Today I pick up S. I miss her and I'm kind of bummed that I didn't get to see her most of Spring break. E really misses her and is bored with her gone.

I quit my cleaning job. Or at least, I told them I needed to be done and have agreed to work 2 more weeks. I've been cleaning for them for SEVEN years. Ack, I can't believe it. I'm thankful for the money. It's really not horrible to do and it has literally bought our groceries on more than one occasion. However, I feel like I have too many pots on the stove and I'm getting tired of not being home on week day nights to put my kids to bed. So in two weeks, I'll be home on Wednesdays and Saturday evenings. I'll still be doing Mr. Senior Guy M, T, Th, and F but that's okay.
Just having that one week day night to get S from school, make dinner, and then be able to STAY HOME... it's like the best chocolate bar.

My days have been filled with doing a lot of driving to prenatals. I've had 3 different women show up with signs of possible UTIs. I myself got one, was too busy to treat it, and then ended up with a frickin' kidney infection last week. Can UTI *bugs* exist and travel?!
Another client is having possible liver stress, which is stressing me out. I gave her a lab req a couple of months ago that she never got done. So I sent her a new one with more tests on it. I hate reading lab diagnostic books because it's like reading a language I'm only somewhat fluent in. Like every 10th word or so I have to consult a medical dictionary just to make sure it's what I think it is. Which takes up a lot of time. And I can't read this stuff when home and some little boy is waving a hair-covered string cheese in my face while asking me to sing the Batman theme song over and over again. After cleaning Wednesday night, I went to Borders and sat on the floor with a stack of lab diagnostic books and a medical dictionary and felt more at peace than I have in weeks. I stayed there 45 minutes or so and it was divine.

I have a list of things I should be doing. I woke at 5:30 this morning to figure out my first year in paying quarterly taxes. Its ridiculous that one is supposed to estimate how much they think they will make. At least people like me who has no clue when the phone will ring, when I'll get hired, or how much I'll get paid. I have no idea. Add to that having a sliding pay scale for clients based on income and doing a hugely discounted birth...I just don't know. I think I've got it figured out and I need to get it in the mail today.

This morning I have a prenatal, followed by a meeting with a new assistant to show her my birth bags. Then I have to drive to my MIL to get S. Which will turn into hours of gabbing and drinking tea while the kids destroy the house. I'll get back late as I always do, with two tired, hungry kids at bedtime.

All right, off to do something more productive before E wakes up for the day.

Friday morning

It's Good Friday and S doesn't have school. I love letting the kids sleep in. I set my alarm anyway because I also love being up in the morning with them asleep. It's really worth getting out of bed just to have time work out, drink some coffee, and hopefully even get a shower before they wake up.
Today I'm supposed to drive to Lansing for a meeting of midwives who are volunteering to help organize the next MANA conference in 2008. I'm a little excited by this, and a little not. I don't consider myself an "organizer" in a conference type of way. I'm OCD about keeping my house clean, but arranging flights and hotels for guest speakers and fund raising doesn't sound remotely appealing to me. I volunteered for the experience and because I really like the group of midwives who are involved. We'll see how it goes. And what I end up with.
Little E is now awake. We're off to watch Magic School Bus.
Post-nursing update: It's been nearly 3 weeks since we've weaned and all is very well. However, last night I slept w/o a shirt. When E came to our bed at 4am (like always), we both, half-asleep, assumed the nursing position, before I realized what was happening, gasped,jumped out of bed and found a tshirt.

Work and Self-Pity A small indulgence

This has been a very busy week. And an even busier weekend.
Despite this, I'm relatively happy. Everyone is asleep but me.
Friday morning I took S to school. It was dress-as-your-fave-book-character day. S chose Anne of Green Gables. We did our best to dress her old fashioned. We braided her blond hair and laughed when she lamented about blond and not red (as Anne hated her red hair). Then we packed her lunch into a beautiful old basket that was my mom's about 55 years ago, along with a old book of love poems (S remembered this detail-Anne always carrying a book of poetry). She looked very cute. Lame-O me did not have sense enough to remember a camera until much later in the day.
After dropping her off, I came home for 30 minutes and cleaned before leaving E with my mom so I could take my MIL to surgery #3 to remove more cancer from her breast. I left at 9:30am and got home at 5:15pm. The surgery went well (we'll get the pathology reports Wednesday- pray its all gone now) and Margaret was doing very well in recovery.
Once home, I held a very tired E who immediately fell asleep in my arms. I got to talk to S for about 15 minutes and stuff my face before going out the door to work for Mr. Senior Guy until 11pm.
Saturday, a Birth Project meeting of sorts here until I had to drive Greg's damn running shoes to him at work. Then work myself from 6-11pm.
This morning I woke at 5:30am, showered, and was at the credit union by 6am to clean. Home again by 8am. Got everyone dressed and fed and out the door by 8:20. Back to MIL's house for a visit. I dropped off the family and headed to Detroit for a 10am prenatal visit.
Back to MIL's by 11:30am. Then we all went to Trader Joe's because I had no groceries at home and knew I'd have no time to get them today if I waited til we came home.
Arrived back home at 4pm. Was able to fart around here with the kids until 5:45 when it was time to go to Mr. Senior Guy's house for the night.
He was sweet and let me out early, 9:30 instead of 11, since I did him a big favor for working this weekend since his girlfriend is on vacation.

I really am grateful for our incomes and our employment. Michigan is in a really bad place as far as our economy goes. I really and truly try not to complain.
But I'm gonna, just for a second.
Because I am so tired of always going out the door. I am tired of missing bedtimes. I am tired of working 6 days a week. I am tired of stressing about whether I'll get to clean on time, whether I can manage to pick S up from Brownies by 5, make dinner, actually eat it and be out the door by 5:45 for Mr. Senior Guy. I'm tired of being stressed about being called to a birth while working for either job.
My week consists of driving S to and from school,writing articles and trying to put together an ever-increasing-in-bulk class curriculum for a pelvic exam/anatomy class I want to teach (this part I am really enjoying, however), doing at least 3 loads of laundry a day, keeping our house straight, trying to keep E on his seizure meds and constantly worrying about if he's going to pass out and smash his head open, planning and cooking meals, making sure S practices her spelling words, working for Mr. Senior Guy 4 nights a week, cleaning 2 nights a week, and doing various hour-long prenatal visits all over the tri-county area in the meantime.

There. I'm done.
I try not to make laundry lists of all the shit I do, but I am fairly worn out at times.
And I miss my family. I miss my children. I miss my husband. We're missing a time clock by the back door so that Greg and I can punch in and out as we pass each other for shift change.

I'm going to bed now. Going to wake Greg up from his place on the trundle bed in the kids room so that I can at least feel him next to me in bed.

Self-pity over. I promise.