Loosin It… Again

Evening ladies! So of course the last few days have been very eventful! LOL… first we found out that the people buying the business had to find a new location because there wasn’t enough power (So they sign a lease for a different building that has “access” to more power. THEN the bid came in at $7,800 (OUCH!) to pull power from another bay.  Then this evening my old landlord calls at home to tell me that the neighbors that were going to take the whole building backed out at the last minute. So if they want, they can stay where they are. It is such a mess… I just want to scream!

On a lighter note… I went to the barn tonight and got to ride for a whole five minutes before baby started crying. DS#1 got to ride for a bit longer. DS#2 was in his snuggly and LOVED watching big bro ride. (I think he is enamoured by the pony!) Came home had a dinner of white chicken chili, and I am ready for bed. LOL… it is 7:30 and still bright outside, but I am exhausted.

I am so ready for life to return to some semblence of NORMAL. But it has been so long, that I don’t know what normal is anymore. I doubt I will make it here tomorrow. So I hope you ladies have a great weekend!

Afternoon ladies!  It was a week ago today that my FIL passed away.  I didn’t realize you could pack so much into seven short days.  Luckily things are starting to calm down and go back to a normal routine.  I am trying to download the video of the graveside service to the computer, but for the life of me I can’t see where to plug the firewire into the movie camera.  (LOL… yep it has been THAT long since I downloaded a movie.)  If I was ambitious I would download the last FOUR x-mases as well.  But that will be for another day.

I want to make a dvd to send to FIL’s sisters.  They live in Indiana and they were quite close.  His eldest sister actually flew out shortly after Austin was born to see FIL.  She thought it was more important to see him in life rather than death, and I am so glad that she did.  So I will send her the video of the flag presentation and graveside service.  DH put the camera on a tripod, so it turned out pretty good.  We only have a couple images of people’s backside during the service.

I thought we were making progress with the company sell/move.  The new landlord has a different building that is a little bit bigger, but they have access to 200 amps more power.  I told the lady I sold it to yesterday, she went and looked at it and said she would rather see a different place.  I think it is a mute point, as it is the only place that is the size she wants with the extra power.  The landlord has “tenatively” offered to pay for part of the installation of the other 200 amps.  I told her that when she figured it out, I would put Austin in daycare and pull up my sleeves and help move all of the stuff that they already moved.  UGGG… what a pain in the a$$!

I still haven’t had time, energy, or opportunity to start promoting my own business.  I really need to get on the ball, as I don’t have any income.  We can float by for a while on DH’s income, but not for long.  We would be paycheck to paycheck… which is where we have been for the last 2 years and I am ready to have some financial security.  Plus… you never know with his employer if they will find him “expendable.”  They are laying off thousands of people right now.  He is in an area that they are hiring, but you still can’t get too comfy there.

My weight is up after this week.  People kept bringing cakes, muffins, cookies to the house.  Things were so hectic that we didn’thave scheduled “meals” and it is showing on the scale.  When I was at the in laws house I weighed mysefl and it showed 179!  At home it is showing 175!  Still not good.  I need to use this time to shed pounds, not add them back on.  I am hoping to go to the barn tonight and ride.  I missed a week, so of course I will be terrible sore again. Slowly but surely I will get back in that saddle.

Thanks so much for your kinds words of support.  I have missed you all over the last week or so… I need to spend some time getting caught up!

Hi Everyone… I have been MIA for a while due to some family issues.  My FIL passed away on Tuesday.  It was expected, yet not.  We had all gotten together for Easter, and while not in stellar healthy none of us expected him to be gone a week later. 

Luckily my PIL have everything planned out for the funerals, but it was still a lot of work.  There are six kids, and not only do you have to try and impliment their last wishes, you have to work through the different personalities and ways of grieving.  DH is taking it pretty hard, he seems better since the funeral but I expect he will be fighting back tears for a while.  He was the closest to his dad in the later years. 

The family is Catholic, so the funeral was a Catholic mass followed by a graveside burial with the color guard.  His dad was a WWII vet, and the service was very great and touching.  The funeral at the church was dry and impersonal, the one benefit is that I managed to keep my composure.  Of course DS #1 provided a touch of comic relief when the choir started to sing and the lady was hitting the high notes.  He is sitting in the front row and he puts his hands over his ears.  DH and I are behind him and tell him NO, so he keeps his hands on his ears ducks down in his seat.  DH tells him no again.  So he sat there, and everytime she hit the high note you could see him cringle.  By this time all of us seated behind him have lost it and are now chuckling uncontrollably.  (Very dignified… but I guess it was what we all needed at that time.)

My SIL is driving me nuts.  Same SIL that didn’t want us to bring him home for Easter two weekends ago.  She has SEIZED CONTROL of the family, family assets and is taking her husbands role of executor to heart.  We are on the brink of a meltdown with DH and I, because I think she has absolutely NO right medling in the financial aspects of the family.  On the day of the funeral she was busy trying to roll over IRA, cancel credit cards, and closing bank accounts without talking to MIL.  MIL… is very strong and cognizant, I can only dream to be in as good of shape as she is when I am in my 80’s.  So she is fully capable of dealing with these things.  There was no need for SIL to butt in and take over. 

To make matters worse, nothing is going well iwth the company move.  Turns out because the former tenants in the new building put in AC there is not enough power.  So we may have to find another building.  UGGGG!  The lady who bought the company, her 31 year old niece died this morning after a heart attack a week ago.  It is very tragic.  She had two young children, just had the lap band surgery and seemed like everything was going well.  The in her sleep a blood clot causes a heart attack and she is in a vegetative state.  The took her off life support yesterday and she passed this morning. 

ONE MORE REASON TO GET CONTROL OF YOUR HEALTH NOW.  Before it is too late.

DS#2 is still spitting up more than is normal.  He has a doc appt on Thursday.  He also has a hernia.  I am done asking “what else can go wrong.”  Because I am pretty sure the possibilities are endless.  Well ladies, I better get back to it.  I will try and catch up with all of you this week sometime.  I have missed you all! 

Evening Ladies.  Today was a long day.  I am soooo looking forward to having everything taken care of with the business.

Today was not a productive day… First we met with an electrician about removing and installing the equipment in the new facility, he informs me that because one of our machines was manfucatured in Germany that we will have to pay an additional $2K to have in UL “field inspected.”  Bear in mind, this machine has been installed in our other building for 11 years and was purchased NEW and I KNOW we had all of the permits then.  So I don’t know if this guy is scamming us or if he is legit and our other electrician didn’t follow the rules.

Second… the same machine is still NOT working!  I called the manufacturer myself with some of the information that I had received from my husband and the guy completely blew me off and told me that from now on I would have to pay $150/hour and speak with one of the techs.  DUH… I THOUGHT I WAS SPEAKING TO A TECH!  And I paid $60K for that machine and never never ever used their tech support before!  I think I am entitled to a little bit of assistance.

So I whined to DH about my dilema… and shed a few tears…told him I would shed more if he didn’t help me, so he is going to go in on Sunday with me and we will tear that dam thing to pieces until we find the problem or render the thing completely useless!

I am still really sore from riding.  How sad is that!  And my weight is up 2lbs… so I better start watching what I eat.  I don’t want to go the other way on the scale.  This weekend I am going to go out to the barn and give our baby horse (almost 2 years old now) a bath.   The co-owner on the horse is having a prof photographer come out and take some pics.  She is still really hairy, so hopefully we can make her presentable.  The lady we bought her from came out to see her, and is suffering from a bad case of seller’s remorse.  (LOL… I would too… she is a beautiful horse with a super sweet temperment.)

DS has a riding lesson tomorrow.  I will try and ride on Saturday.  Still trying to juggle the new baby angle.  He is pretty good, but he doesn’t sleep as much as his older bro did at the same age.  So I don’t have as much freedom as I thought I would have.

Well ladies… I am exhausted and I hear bed calling my name.  Have a great night and a terrific Fri is I don’t make it back!

Morning Ladies!  LOL… I guess I am a little late… so happy afternoon!  I am finding it harder and harder to get here early.  With the journals I liked to get there early when eveyrone was on… but with the blogs it is so much harder to keep track of everyone that I let my time slip a bit.

I am at our business trying to clean things up.  The employees who bought the business are working their butt off moving stuff from here to there and throwing junk away.  13 years… you can accumulate a lot of STUFF!  I am going through my office and trying to keep stuff that is important and toss the rest.  We still haven’t located an electrician to get the big stuff moved, I thought this was a slow economy where everyone was hungry for work????  WTH… no one will call me back.  Probably are all working as greeters at W-mart!

I went horseback riding yesterday.  First time in months.  IT FELT GREAT!!!  But boy am I sore today!  ;)  My back is sore, my legs don’t get sore anymore.  But my back from all of the movement and maintaining balance gets horrible sore.  DS didn’t ride, but he did a great job of taking care of his little bro!  I went in the tack room to find Austin all dressed up with no place to go.  :P  Cam had put his mittens on, hat on, and had adhered a bunch of his toys to his hands.  It was adorable, and Austin slept through the whole thing! 

He is with Gma today, while I try and get this stuff done.  I have two days to get my portion cleaned up.  We still don’t have the machine fixed.. they latest is the company that makes and distributes the machine says they don’t have a “manual” for the machine.  So they want to CHARGE US FOR THE MANUAL!  WTH… you are supposed to be tech support!  So dh is coming back over tonight to look at it with the multi meter and see if he can find what is wrong.  It makes me want to cry when I think about it! 

Well ladies… I better get back to work.  I hope all are doing well.  I will try and stop by later to catch up with everyone!  Big HUGS!

Along with WTH is TWITTER!  So a friend of mine emailed me a link to twitter, so I forwarded it to some of you that I have in my address book.  Thus far… I am confused.  LOL… big surprise… Blogging is to much for me so I am sure that “twittering” might do me in!  So if you get an invite from me… feel free to disregard if you have no interest.  I haven’t had anytime to really get in there and see what it is.  So far it seems like the “What are you doing” line in FB.

Austin is still puking stuff up… I have been wracking my brain about food allergies because DS#1 was/is allergic to milk.  I have kept milk out of my diet with this one, but so far I have not seen a correlation.  I have been mindful of nuts and soy.  He doesn’t have any of the bumps or splotches that DS#1 had when he had allergies.  I have been getting lots of fiber so I am hopeful that it makes it to him, but  I don’t understand the chemistry behind breast milk to really know what passes on.  I am suspicious that it might be acid reflux, but neither docs thought that was a possible problem.  So I guess it is a wait and see.  Poor thing… I hate watching him get so sick.

Work is really frustrating… I can’t get the one machine that broke down last week to work again.  I am at my wits end.  The company that we bought it from doesn’t have the “manual” for it… so they can’t help us without calling Germany and paying to have them send out a new manual.  I might as well just call Germany myself!  Hopefully I can sweet talk DH into stopping out there tonight and taking a look at it again.

Well… I need to clean the house.  DH and I got in an argument about how dirty the house is.  I don’t feel like fighting anymroe, so I will straighten up while DS is asleep.  Scale said 173 this morning…  keep on a coming!!!!

Morning Ladies.  I see they finally closed the journals.  I don’t envy the “tech” person that gets to download all of those entries!  :P  Weekend was good and busy.  DH didn’t feel well on Sat so he didn’t go to work.  DS#1 went on an Easter Egg hunt.  He got tied up in the rope at the starting line so by the time he got untangled most of the eggs were gone.  I had followed him into the field, but he lost sight of me and had a melt down.  He ran to one of the mothers that he knows from school sobbing…  he is so quick to tear up it breaks my heart.  He composed himself and we came home to get dad and baby to head over to PIL (Parents-in-Law).

After some argument amongst the family we decided to get his DD out for a few hours during Easter.  He is still at the rehab facility and basically is just taking up space because he refuses to do any of his rehab.  All of the kids made it over but one… and it was nice to have everyone together.  It doesn’t happen very often with this group.  The boys made a ramp for his wheel chair.  I felt kind of bad for DH, we were the only ones that got there on Sat so he got all of the chores (mowing yard, weed wacking, and trimming.)  Then one of his brothers suggested that they make the wheel chair ramp (in the pouring rain), so DH didn’t have any down time this weekend.  It showed when we got home, he lost his temper with DS#1 and had to promptly apologize.

His dad is 85 and has given up.  He isn’t ready to die, but he isn’t willing to do what it takes to get better.   Very very frustrating.  Combine that with a touch of senility… and it is sad to watch.  Once again I will reiterate to get yourselves in shape now so you don’t have to deal with mobility and diabetes issues later.  His body has worn out and he is now being held hostage.  He basically sat in his wheel chair dozing off to sleep.  He ate a little bit of food, but mostly he just asked people to rub his back and complained that it was cold (83 degrees!!!)  I fear this may be the last time that he is home and the family is together.
DH mom is at her wits end.  She is in excellent shape physically… probably better than me… but she is tired.  He is really rude and mean to her, but she can’t do anything about it.  She says it is like watching and waiting for him to die.  Must be a horrible thing to watch.  They have been married for 60+ years.

Both boys were really really good.  Austin is still spitting up a lot and we had to give him a suppository to get something going on the other end.  I am not sure what is going on with him… we will just have to watch and wait and see if it gets better.  He has gained over 3lbs since birth!  LOL… he is a little chunk!  So I know he is getting his nutrition.  I am down to 174 as of this morning.  So officially I am down 35 pounds since giving birth 5 weeks ago.  I wish I had taken advantage of the breast feeding weight loss plan with DS #1!  Instead I took advantage of the “gorge yourself” plan.

It is strange, and I don’t know if it is because of 9 months of morning sickness, but I feel like I have a different relationship with food.  I am not as hungry and I just don’t have the strong urges to eat everything in sight.  (Knock on wood… but I hope it stays around indefinitely!)  My new weight loss goal is to lose another 15 pounds.  I figure 15 pound “mini-goals” are easier than fixating on the additional 50 pounds I would LOVE to lose.

Well ladies… have a great Monday!

Friday is a day of endings and new beginnings.  I officially sign over control of my business and the sun sets on the 3FC journals for good.  So Saturday I begin anew… with new business opportunities and new people to meet.  I can’t help but feel a little anxious, overwhelmed and saddened.  At the same time I am excited for what the next chapter in my life will hold.  I have been living other peoples dreams for the last ten years, and it is time to live my own.  I am scared to death!!!  That life, although stressful and often times traumatic, has been comfortable and familiar.  The new chapter in my life is full of unknowns, and as a type “a” personality that is hard to deal with!  But I have the power to make them great.

Okay… enough of that.  I missed posting yesterday because it was a crazy day.  Austin was up throwing up the night before, so we made a doc appt.  Took him in and he threw up all over the exam room, and he hadn’t pooped in a couple of days.  So they sent us off to the hospital for an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay.  U/S came back ok on his tummy, but they couldn’t get a good look at his bowels so if the problems persist they will do an x-ray.

I had my post-partum today.  LOL… they didn’t even weigh me!  Go figure!  I had them do the Mirana implant so that there will hopefully be no little surprises in the future. ;)  DH is whimping out when it comes to getting snipped.  I told him he has five years to build up his courage.  :P  My implant will be good for 5 years.  I feel really crampy right now, but doc said that should ease up in a couple of days.  So I got a clean bill of health and everything looks good to resume “normal” activites.  LOL… DH will be happy to hear the good news. 

As long as everything is ok with Austin, we are heading over to DH’s parents this weekend.  FIL is still in rehab, I am hoping that we can maybe “spring” him on Sunday and bring him home for an EAster potluck.  I still have to email the rest of the family to see if anyone else is heading over. 

Well ladies… I better bring this to a close.  Have a great day!

AFternoon ladies!  I have been working from home trying to get the purchase contract written up for the business before anything else goes wrong!  A part went out on the machine and it will cost $1,400 to fix.  I am glad it happened now and not after they took possession… I would feel really bad.  (Honest to a fault I guess!)

Yesterday I didn’t get a chance to get on and post.  But the weather was fantastic!  I can’t believe how nice it was!  Today is another great day, but Weds the rain begins again.  Hopefully it won’t be here long.  DH is bummed because he says the lawn is going to grow like crazy! 

The baby is doing well.  He is still puking a lot.  But he is growing like a weed, so he must be eating a lot as well.  My food intake has been bad lately.  I had a marscapone cheese cake over the weekend.  OMG… so good.  Lemon cake topped with a marscapone cheese filling drizzled in blueberry sauce.  Not as rich as a real cheesecake and maybe not “quite” as bad… but bad enough!  I got on the scale yesterday and it protested with 1/2 pound increase.  My body may be regulating with all of the breastfeeding and I have a feeling losing weight is going to start getting more difficult.  Need to watch myself.  I won’t always have an extra 500 cals to spare.

Well… I better get to the office and get them to sign this paper before things really go to hell!  Hope all is well!

Finally…. some good news.  The employee has decided to buy the company.  I am selling it at a STEEP discount, but I really hope that they are able to make a successful transition.  So now the month gets REALLY REALLY busy as I help them relocate and reassure all of the customers that nothing will change.  I am excited for them, and I am nervous about turning a new leaf in my life.  But I feel liberated at the same time.  I will continue to help them as long as they need or want me.  But I also want to use this time to find myself again.  I have been so stressed because of the business for so many years that I feel like I have added an extra 10 years to my life.  There are so many things that I want/need to do. 

1.  Take better care of myself.  I am not helping my family by letting myself go.  I am also not helping myself.  Somedays when I look in the mirror I am shocked by what I see looking back at me.  Pictures are even worse!  Time to seize the jump start that I have with the new baby and take some weight off, get in shape, and get rid of some stress.

2.  Pursue MY dreams.  The business was really my mom and sis’s dream.  Not mine.  I got roped into it and couldn’t get out.  My mom got out years ago, but sis and I remained.  Time to get my business on track and to get my aspirations going.

3.  Get back in touch with DH and family.  I feel like DH and I have just been going through the motions lately.  I am sure that most marriages find themselves in this place, but I really do love him and want to have a healthy and good relationship.  I hope that now the stress is gone, we can spend more time with each other and not talking about work.

4.  Finish some projects!!!  OMG… I have so many projects hanging over my head that I need to get done.  While I have some down time, I really want to make a dent.  We have a vintage travel trailer that we have been trying to restore for the last five years.  We have spent a ton of money on stuff for the trailer, but we have stalled out at the “reconstruction.”  I want to sweet talk my recently retired step dad into helping me rebuild the framework of the trailer so that I can finish it.  I would love to have it ready for this summer.  DH is too busy with work, and it would be a great feeling to finally get it done!

5.  Take some personal time.. plan a vacation… a REAL vacation.  In all the years DH and I have been together, we have not had a real vacation.  Hop on a plane and get the hell out of town and leave all of our worries behind.  It is time to start planning something.  Even if I have to make payments and schedule it for 2 years from today… I want to have that time with the family!

Okay… so I feel liberated and ready to start my new life!  What a HUGE relief!  Thanks for all of your support and well wishes.  As always, they have paid off!