Marsia's Diary
- Thread starter Marsia
- Start date
alligatorob
Respected Member
Hey Marsia, good to see you still posting. Have not really been able to catch up, but in scanning your diary you have reinforced my opinion that K has a great Mama!
Yep, a big part. And I suspect it's partly insecurity and trying to boost one's own ego. Not sure it works...
Hey Rob, it's so good to hear from you again! Thanks for the nice compliment! I think my job isn't that hard because I have a really great kid. I agree about both the insecurity and boosting one's ego. I wish schools would teach emotional intelligence and basic psychology so people understood defense mechanisms!
Thanks Liza, it's really nice being in a clean kitchen and opening a clean fridge!
Thanks Llama, the meditation is really wonderful lately. It's so nice that when I need it so much, it also helps so much.
Thanks for the hug, Cate! Today we went to a class in native plants and got there really late, so only got the part about invasive species, but my friend brought all these native plants and we planted them and took some home. It's so fun hanging out with plant people. We had done a little yoga this morning and were both inexplicably really sore. So I didn't get much done after going to the class and getting K a few more clothes. I am worried we might be coming down with something because this amount of soreness is definitely not from anything we did in the last few days. I'll make some ginger tea to make sure tomorrow. I'll make some curry pumpkin soup with some chicken thrown in tomorrow, too. It's so late, must sleep now.
A native plants class sounds like so much fun!
If schools had to teach everything kids need school would be 12 hours a day, 6 hours a week. That's why parenting is such an important job and why it's so sad not all parents have the resources (be it emotional, intellectual, social, time-wise, or motivational) to do as good a job as kids need them to.
I hope you guys feel better with the ginger tea and curried pumpkin soup (both sound delicious!)
I agree. Would have been more helpful than a lot of the other stuff I spent time learning!
Those sound like the perfect home remedies for illness. Sometimes I feel a little off, but generally if I have a little rest or just take it easy for a bit, it kind of passes over. Hope that's the case here too!
alligatorob
Respected Member
I am glad you have a great kid, but don't sell yourself short. She is great and its not hard because you did a good job!
Understanding what our native plants are is interesting, gives insight into how things evolved. Turning those native plants into crops was one of the most important things in our history. And I like the idea of planting native plants.
not all plants are safe
Thanks Cate! I feel like I did well with a lot of things, but having social anxiety really wasn't good for mixing with the other parents. K's best friend wants her to come visit in CA now, and her mom let K know that she'd pay for airfare. I tried asking if the husband would tell J about K being at their house, and explained that J is not a good person in as vague a way as possible, and the mom answered me back with a 2 sentence answer saying that things sounded hard, and good luck or something like that. She didn't empathize that we need to hide from J or answer my question about her husband telling J that K was visiting them. (J and the husband are good friends.) I hadn't gone on all sorts of outings she had invited me on when we lived in CA because we had nothing in common and I had so much trouble thinking of what to say to her, so I ended up alienating her, and I feel really bad about it. So this was a reminder of what a mess I was while raising K. I think it was partly because both my mom and J were picking on me a lot. But it was also that the socialization stuff I was expected to do where I did a bunch of activities with other moms made me really anxious, so K was rather isolated as a result. I do feel like there is a lot to being a mom, and even though I didn't work outside the home, I still didn't cover all the basics. I think you are right about it being a hard gig. We slept a lot the last couple of days, and I think we dodged whatever that was for the most part. K's stomach is still a little sensitive.I agree with Rob. You are a great mum, not just because K is a great kid. Being a parent is a very tough gig. Having a clean kitchen & a clean fridge, meditating & being with plant people all sounds good. I do hope you're not coming down with anything though!xo
The class was really nice. My friend here organizes so many cool events. I think many parents struggle because only one parent usually does most of the parenting, and really it's a job for an extended family, and we're mostly broken up into little nuclear families as a culture.
Thanks Liza, the curry pumpkin soup came out really good, and it made K's stomach happy. I often think about how I would design a curriculum if I could for early grades, and I think I'd include a lot of classic literature and analysis of it so kids learned emotional maturity right in there with literary analysis.
Thanks Em, we took a 3 hour nap yesterday, and are feeling a lot better today. The soup (and the well wishes) really helped!
Thanks Rob! The thing about not socializing much with other moms is a big flaw, but I do feel good about a lot of other things about my parenting. Thanks for all the compliments about it. It's been a hard week for me as a parent. I can see all the posts on social media about kids graduating back home in CA, and K isn't part of that, and I can't send her to hang out with her friends because I just paid massive lawyers' fees and we need to save every penny. K went to a private school that we could just barely afford, so there are all these posts of happy families vacationing in Greece and around the world, and we can't really go anywhere, and we need to get jobs. It's really frustrating, and I got a bit down. The divorce was supposed to happen next month, and we're so far from that. Thanks for the happy video of Little Shop of Horrors. I saw the earlier film of that and loved it! It's interesting how many of the plants I grew up with in the northeast have similar cousins here, like here there is a Virginia Creeper, and I grew up with a variant called woodbine that I loved weaving little garden sculptures with. The people in the class were interested in all the differences. It's so rare being around people who love plants that much! I really think a book on the history of how plants shaped civilizations would be fascinating. Our free plants are looking really happy, too. I watered them with rainwater and put them in the deep shade and they perked right up. I hope we get to see some of them bloom before we move. There is a swamp lily that I really admire in my neighbors' yards.
It was really awful corresponding yesterday with someone who wanted to borrow my kid so her kid had a nice summer, but that mom really doesn't like me and didn't even ask me directly about the plans. It was totally my fault about her being angry with me for not doing most of those nice outings with her that she organized. She is such a nice person, and I feel terrible that things didn't work out well. A lot of times J discouraged me from going on things that cost money, and it turns out he was probably squirreling away the money. But most of the time, I just could not think of a thing to talk with her about. K thinks that if I weren't battling J all the time, I'd have had more energy and my social anxiety would not have been so bad. Anyway, I am more upset about K not going to CA than K is. We'll work something out with the family so K is safe and can have a good visit when the divorce goes through.
My weight is back down despite all the drama. I really don't like drama!!!
Edit: K's best friend's mom wrote back the sweetest email reply, so I got all bent out of shape about failing our relationship for no good reason. I did still wreck the relationship, but she is still very kind and nice, and I think now that I am not fighting J and my mom all the time, maybe I have the energy to repair the relationship.
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Sending hugs for all the stress. 
I am glad that you got a nice email back from K's friend's mom. It does sound like a really tough situation of having all those ties where J is still very much present. As you say, hopefully when things feel more stable, you both can take a trip there together where things can feel both safe and fun for both of you!
Drama does suck--I hope you can re-focus on the present happiness again.
I am glad that you got a nice email back from K's friend's mom. It does sound like a really tough situation of having all those ties where J is still very much present. As you say, hopefully when things feel more stable, you both can take a trip there together where things can feel both safe and fun for both of you!
Drama does suck--I hope you can re-focus on the present happiness again.
Thanks Cate, Liza, and Llama. I am feeling better today, and will just put this behind me. I agree about not looking back to the past, but aiming for what we want instead. Thanks for reiterating that I'm a good mom, Cate. I think it's sinking in. I need to put my attention to making things work now, and I know they will in the long run. It was so nice getting a good night's sleep tonight. The night before this, there was the loudest thunder I had ever heard. It was like it was right above the roof of the house, and it was of biblical proportions. Yesterday we got my bathroom prepped for painting, but my non-dominant hand is cramping a lot, so we'll take a day off today, since I have to switch off hands when I paint because it's really tiring reaching up high to paint with my gimpy arm. It's so beautiful out, but it's been pretty hot and very muggy. We visited our old farm stand that moved to a new place, and it's really nice. Prices went up, but mostly what we get is the local heirloom tomatoes, which are divine. We have them just sliced with a little mayo and they are probably K's favorite veggie. The screen house is quickly losing the roof. It's just this plastic mesh that's made to look like metal mesh, and it's shredding where it's nailed in, and whole sections are down. I think we'll just take it off and buy new, better quality stuff to replace it all. The last people who owned the house did a bunch of "repairs" that were very lame, like putting clear varnish on the hardwood floors without sanding first, so all the varnish lifted off when the painters put down tape for painting. So there is only primer on the railings outside, and it peels off and gets green moss all over it, etc. We corrected some of this, like the floors, when we moved in, but I still have little stuff to fix. It's nice walking around the house now looking at the rooms that are painted. It looks calm and clean and fresh now.
I'm glad you are feeling better.
lovely!
I guess that's the thing when people are looking to just make some superficial fixes to make a house look better for selling. It's too bad when you end up having to go back over things and fix it up properly.
lovely!Thanks Llama and Liza! Fixing up the house is a little intimidating, but we are getting the hang of things. We were thinking of taking down the old huge plate glass mirrors in the bathrooms that are a bit corroded on the bottoms and painting with stencils so the area above the vanity has nice patterns and then we could replace the old 80s sconces with something that matches the house better and get some framed, inexpensive mirrors. So that's one easy project that modernizes the bathrooms and is pretty inexpensive. I guess it depends on if we are here that long. But it's fun to plan. We did take down the towel racks and get the huge drywall screws out of the walls and sanded and patched and marked where not to put up new towel racks because the old ones were there. It's fun finding little things that help make the house not look dated that are easy like that. We may paint the vanity doors and kitchen cabinet doors, too because they are a little beat up looking. I am not looking forward to getting all the old primer off the porch spindles though. So many sides of spindles to sand.
Today was so nice. My hand and arm really need a break, so we went downtown and had coffee and treats and then went to the more contemporary art museum which is small, but has a pretty great collection of Southern modern abstract art and some really cool African American famous artists. The revolving collections were so good that we saw the whole museum twice. We also didn't want to walk through the super hot downtown, and lingered in the nice air conditioned museum for as long as possible. I think my body needs another day off, so I think tomorrow is a baking and food prep day. Yoga felt so wonderful this evening.
Today was so nice. My hand and arm really need a break, so we went downtown and had coffee and treats and then went to the more contemporary art museum which is small, but has a pretty great collection of Southern modern abstract art and some really cool African American famous artists. The revolving collections were so good that we saw the whole museum twice. We also didn't want to walk through the super hot downtown, and lingered in the nice air conditioned museum for as long as possible. I think my body needs another day off, so I think tomorrow is a baking and food prep day. Yoga felt so wonderful this evening.
Cate
Long term member
You & K will be old hands at this renovation stuff by sale time. I might have to call on you both when it's my time to sell I think you could help me make this place look really schmick!
Enjoy your baking & food prep day.
I will keep reminding you that you are a great Mum
I think you could help me make this place look really schmick!Enjoy your baking & food prep day.
I will keep reminding you that you are a great Mum
Thanks Llama! It feels much better to be actively doing things we enjoy that also help the process along. I think we've turned a corner.
That would be really fun, and "schmick" still makes me laugh! I am getting so I really like finding ways to fix things up inexpensively. I don't know how I'd do just working from photos, but it would be fun to try. Thanks for being so supportive, Cate!!You & K will be old hands at this renovation stuff by sale time. I might have to call on you both when it's my time to sell
Enjoy your baking & food prep day.
I will keep reminding you that you are a great Mum
It's early here, but I woke up and my hand and arm feel a lot better. Better to do another day of rest for them though. Time to get up and make a cup of tea and some berries and yogurt.
alligatorob
Respected Member
I am sure you are quite good at it, and I often find that kind of thing can be satisfying. Gives you a feeling of accomplishment. And helps K learn how to do it, and get the confidence to do it herself one day.
You should. Just take a look at K, it's obvious you are a great Mama! What she is today is what matters, the details of what you did not so much.