7 Years

7 years is a long time to be out of the work force.  I go back in today and I am excited.  It will be good to make money for the family again and nice to be around people. I am nervous about silly things, you know like what happens if I have to go to the bathroom?  I probably will have to ask permission....that is a really strange thing to think about.  Then I worry, what if the people I work with don't like me?  That is actually my old way of thinking though, and I am trying to correct that.  I am a really friendly, capable person so if they don't like me it is probably on them.  One of the things I am striving to do is to not let myself be defined by other people's perceptions of me.

I feel grateful to have been able to stay at home with my family for all these years.  A lot of people never get to do that.  I can't believe how fast 7 years goes by.  So much has changed in my life since I last held a job.  7 years ago we were living in  a trailer.  I was pregnant for my youngest but she hadn't yet arrived.  My son was five and my oldest daughter was 8.  I drove a car instead of a minivan!!  My grandpa was still alive and he and my grandma were still living in their house.  Things were very different.

We as a family have had many changes in that time just like every family I guess.  We have had our successes and our losses.  I just mostly am so happy that no matter what happened I was there for it all.

The great thing about this job is that I only have to be there part time.  During the school year the kids won't even be aware of my absence for the most part because I will be at work while they are at school.  I will still be available to help with homework and to drive to practices.  I will still be there when they get off the bus excited or sad.  I like to be the first person to hear about their day and lucky for me that is isn't going to change.

I am nervous and excited to see what this new change brings! Here's to the next 7 years!!!
Wish me luck!

After

So this is the mostly finished version.  I have one more coat of wax to do on top but other than that it is all finished.  I am mostly pleased with this for my first try doing something like this. There are some areas that don't look perfect but I don't think that anyone else would notice them except for me. I am glad to know that waxing is so much easier than I anticipated.  I can't wait for the wax to cure so I can start working on my bedroom.  

The steps I took to achieve this look are as follows.

I started by cleaning the piece with odorless mineral spirits. As you can tell from the before picture it was very nicotine stained even after I cleaned so I was a little nervous as I waited an hour for the mineral spirits to dry. 

Before I began painting I had to first use 220 sand paper on the top of the desk because it was made of Formica and I wanted to use less coats of the chalk paint.

I then started on my first coat of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  I chose Old White because I thought it would compliment the style of the desk.  I have to say I still feel the same way I really like the way it looks.  

I used this Annie Sloan brush to apply the paint.  I invested in this more expensive brush because I plan to do a lot more pieces in the upcoming months and I have heard that these brushes if treated well last forever!

Next was the finishing step of using the Annie Sloan Soft Wax.  This is the step I am almost finished with.  I just need to do one more coat and I am finished.

This is the wax brush that I used. Again I invested a little extra money to get a good brush that would hold up well.

That is how I had my desk go from:

To this:

Before

I have been working on this desk for a few weeks now.  I purchased it back in the late fall and thought all winter about fixing it up.  This picture is the before. In a couple of days I will be all set to show you guys the after.  I am going to put the first coat of wax on this afternoon and the last tomorrow after my first day of work.  Then it should be done.  

I have to say it has been harder than I imagined in my head, but I like the groove that I get into when I am working on it.  I find it kind of peaceful working on an even paint job and then sanding between coats.  

I also like the idea of taking something that was looking old and worn out and making it new.  I have hopes of learning different refinishing techniques so I can build rooms around pieces of furniture. The idea I have for this desk is redoing my room in French Provincial.  I have a pretty good vision coming into view in my mind.  I  am hoping I can pull it off. 

Lots to do today.  Hope you guys have a great day!! 

Poetry and Painting

I started my new painting class which is a whole lot of fun.  I am terrible at it as you can see but I am enjoying learning about lines and depth.  It is a lot of fun and I have even started sketching a little bit.  This is a picture I drew of a jug.

While it is no where near perfect I am really proud of the progress I made in just a short time.  I am enjoying learning about something I don't know anything about.  It is truly so much fun.

I also went last night to a reading a friend of mine did of his writing. He was so brave and so talented.  I was very inspired by it and I started thinking about how long it has been since I have written and shared any poetry of my own.   I wrote something this morning hope you guys like it:

It Is Right

There is a difference in the step

When walking with purpose

Happy

Head held up high

Forgetting to question myself

Feeling the sun on my face

Feeling beautiful

Having it run from the tip of my toes to the top of my head

Believing in me

Truly learning that the tiny imperfections are what make it interesting

Forgiving myself

For the for the times I wasn’t enough

For the times I didn’t know how to do anything but hide

Knowing that I alone would find the answers of who I could be

I can write

I can Paint

I can SIng

I can DANCE

I CAN SMILE

I can do any old thing I want to do and have peace with it

I don’t even have to be good at it

Or be the best at it

I can just be me

I am enough

I don’t have to live up to any labels they have affixed to me

I can climb out of the box and hang out on the ledge

I don’t have to self destruct

Or self medicate

I can grow with purpose

I can change the narrative

I did not know that

I thought I was stuck in the story I was in

 but I am not

I can be anything

It is okay to say I

It is okay to be selfish

It is okay to drink in cool breezes and powerful sunsets

It is okay to say NO

When I don’t feel like it

When something makes me uncomfortable

When my boundaries are not being respected

It is okay to say Yes

To something different

To meet new people who think about life differently

To step outside of my comfort zone

To try something new

To color outside of the lines

It is okay to be more than I ever dreamed possible

To be a loving wife/mother/daughter/sister/friend

To be obsessed with dreams and what they mean

Both literally and figuratively

To stare up at the sky and get consumed by it

It is okay to be lonely

It is okay to be in a crowd

It is okay to laugh as loud as I want

As hard as I want

It is okay to be right here where I am today

 In fact it is more than okay

         It is Right

Pleasantly Surprised

I had my shots and was beyond blown away when she told me that after my next appointment I may be able to switch to as needed.  In my head because I had small spots growing in different places I figured they were going to get bigger.  She told me that I shouldn't think that.  Instead she said it seems like the spots are coming in smaller and that maybe this next month there would be no new spots at all.

I am so excited about this.  I try not to get too overly hopeful in case it doesn't work out this way.  But I can't help it...when I think about it I get crazy happy.  Maybe I am seeing results after all.  I have to believe that things are going to get better from here.  Thank you guys for being there for the days when I am not so hopeful.  I won't say they won't happen anymore but perhaps they will be less frequent.

Hope you guys have an amazing day.

Appearances

I go for shots again tomorrow.  I am feeling somewhat disheartened about having them as there are many new growing areas where I am losing hair.  I don't like having the needles shoved into my head.  It is frustrating to me that even though I am trying to live a healthier life that it isn't changing my condition that I am able to detect yet.

 I think about stopping the shots and seeing if the hair grows back on it's own.  At least then I can spare myself the trauma of being poked all over my head every month.  As well as saving the money I pay each time I go. I know though that if the hair didn't fill in as it does with the shots I would feel more beaten down then I do now. So stopping doesn't really feel like an option.

People keep asking if the shots are working, when I say they are, people say that is great.  I always have to pause and say it is great...but...The but is that the shots do not stop my hair from falling out.  It only stimulates new growth.  Which means that in my estimation, if my hair keeps falling out the way it has been, that in the next year or so most of it will have fallen out and be in various stages of regrowth.  I can't imagine what that will look like.

I mostly have a good attitude about it.  What I wrote the past few days isn't bull shit.  I really am trying to keep myself focused on the things that are truly important, it is just sometimes I feel nervous about it. I feel nervous about how I will feel if it does all fall out. I wonder what I will look like if it is bald and then patches of growth all different lengths.

  I know the people who know me and love me aren't going to care about it.  They really aren't.  I don't worry so much abut that.  Which is a blessing to have people in my life that I know love me for me.  I am more nervous about what strangers will think.  Which is very different for me.

I have always said that I am not the type of girl who cares about what I look like or what people think of me.  I have never been a person who felt like I needed to do my hair and make up to run to the store.  I would say cavalierly that I was low maintenance.    I would throw on a sweatshirt and pull my hair back in a ponytail and be on my way.  I sort of want to punch past me in the face for not realizing that everyone isn't that lucky.  I was completely unaware that there were people out there who didn't have that option.  That it was not a simple choice to be low maintenance.

 It isn't to say that I regret that there was a time in my life that I felt comfortable in myself in my natural form.  It is more that now I understand people who take time before they leave the house to be more comfortable with flaws in their form whether they are real, imagined, or exaggerated in their own minds.  Or even if they are just taking more time because it makes them feel beautiful, who was I to ever think I was better because I would just leave the house?

  I take a lot more time to leave the house the majority of the time now.  Even if my hair is lying on my head easily I still feel ugly. I will take time to do my make up and pick out a nice outfit to help pull away from my perceived flaws. Most of the time no one is probably even aware of my issues but me.  I wonder now if some of the girls I always thought of as high maintenance were really just trying to mask the flaws they thought everyone would be paying attention to.  

I then wonder if I am vain that I care so much about what people might be thinking of if they see one of my patches.  I also feel ashamed of them sometimes like they somehow make me less of a person. 

 I went through a few week period this winter where I sincerely believed that there were first grade boys who had seen my large patch in the back of my head and were making fun of me in my daughter's lunchroom.  I am still not sure they weren't, as they would for a few weeks span jab at each other and then point at me each time they saw me and then laugh.   Even as I type that, I can see how pathetic it sounds, as if it matters what some 6 year old boys think of me. I hated that it bothered me the way it did.  The worst thought that plagued me was the idea that it might reflect badly on my daughter.  I had horrific visions of them saying something to her about how nasty her mom was.  

Eventually I stopped paying attention to them because I knew I was driving myself a little crazy and it was unacceptable.  That was around the same time I started making all these changes to become a more whole person.  It became clear to me that I had to start loving myself from the inside out.  Which I am really trying to do, but I struggle.

 I guess the point is that now this low maintenance girl is sometimes very worried what strangers are thinking or what they will be thinking in the future.  I get nervous about people staring at me that I don't know.  If my hair all falls out I wonder if they will think I am really sick with cancer or something and have misplaced pity.  I wonder if I will care more than I want to when I can't hide it anymore.

At first when this started happening I thought that I would get a wig if it got bad enough.  Now I am not so sure about that.  I have done some reading that suggests that the wigs can be damaging to the new hair growth.  I will probably end up getting some head wraps. To be honest though, I hope that I will love myself from the inside out enough that I will be bad ass enough to just go out with out any covering and not feel like I had to explain it to anyone.

Red Barn

I went on an amazing walk.  I walked about four miles around the block near my house.  I made sure to stop and take pictures when I saw things that jumped out at me.  The picture I loved the most was this small barn by this tree.  It embodies everything I love about living in my small town.

The farm community, the peace, the way things can stay the same even as everything is changing around it.  

I have lived here in this small town most of my life.  I am enjoying looking at it through  a new scope.  Trying to find beauty in the things I pass almost every day without really thinking about them. Really being aware of my surroundings and realizing how they are a part of me.

My husband and I also went walking together this evening.  I really enjoy when him and I are able to walk just the two of us.  It gives us time to talk and enjoy each others company.  He even encouraged me to walk across some rocks under a bridge like I haven't since I was around 12.  I don't think I would have done that without him there.  I will be glad when things start to dry up so we can explore more areas.

I love the nice weather so very much!  I am looking forward to when it gets a little warmer and we can have fires and picnics.  I also have a desk I am going to start working on refinishing at the beginning of May.  So that is something I will be taking pictures of to show you guys too. 

Enjoy this beautiful weather!