Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Random Thoughts and Recent Events

Thank you, everyone for your get well wishes for Ben. He seems to be feeling a little better: he is playing more with Bogey and has a little more energy than he has had recently. This may mean the medicine is working, or it may mean that I am engaging in wishful thinking- we will find out in about a week when he finishes the medicine and we take him in for a blood test. I will let you all know the outcome.

Not a whole lot going on here- we are slowly but surely getting our new house in order. R and I are in love with the new place: a lot more room and all one level (save for the basement). The bizarre snowstorm we suffered through together was a real downer (32 inches of snow!), but we are grateful that we were able to get the fence up for the backyard before the snow fell- otherwise I would be spending the majority of my day going in and out with the dogs on leashes! Our backyard is enormous and is filled with chipmunks, a fact that Ben and Bogey enjoy immensely. Let's hope that the chippies are faster than the boys, or else we will be having a lot of chippie funerals this summer!

I have decided not to get into great detail over one of my reader's choice options: difficult people suck. There is a slim chance that someone might read this who also knows this person and I do not wish to infuse anymore drama into an already ridiculously dramatic situation. I will leave it at this: There is a local community organization that I am very involved with both as a community member and as a member of our church. My involvement has meant that I have had to work with an individual who has the best of intentions (I think) but has great difficulty working with the group in a "team" way. For some reason this person has a personal "thing" against me and that has caused a lot of grief for both of us and for the group. I honestly can say that I have tried everything I can think of to get along with this person, but there seems to be some wierd competition thing going on with this person where I am slated as the "one to compete against." I have some idea as to the reason for this competitive slant but am frankly befuddled as to why I would be a threat. There has been a lot of "trash talk" going on with other people in this group and elsewhere in groups we both are involved in where this person has repeatedly put me down, blamed me for problems in the group, and essentially "thrown me under the bus". Of course, the people who are the listening party in these trash talk sessions have all come to me and told me everything, so I am painfully aware about what is being said about me by this person. I have so far kept my mouth shut about it under the assumption that the people who matter know the truth of the situation and know me well enough to draw their own conclusions about what is true. Still, it is painful to have to deal with someone who is nice as pie to my face and tearing me apart behind my back. Unfortunately, I have contact with this individual in another major arena of my life, so the strain of this less than healthy "relationship" is a bit much to bear most days. (hmmm, even though I have tried to be careful in this post, I have given a lot of information out. oh well, consider it a passive aggresive retalitary poke-I am only human and I have really had enough of trying to be the better person in this situation)

Recent events have decreased the intensity of the situation, so I did not end up quitting the community group, something that I ranted and raved and cried about for many weeks- a marathon long temper tantrum in which I told anyone who would listen that this was not worth the aggravation (even though the fact that I was temper tantruming about the situation so much indicates that it is, indeed, worth a great deal to me personally). And so the work continues, and hopefully some of the new projects we have come up with as a group will take off and we will be able to keep open the Family Center we worked so hard to get up and running. One of our current projects is making U.P quilts for U.P Troops- quilts that will be delivered to U.P soldiers who are wounded in Iraq and are recovering at Walter Reed. We have gotten the local boy scout troop and the local elementary school on board and the kids will be making quilt squares to put into the quilts- in fact today I am scrambling around trying to scrape enough money together to buy the needed quilt pens and quilt paint necessary for over 140 kids to use to design their quilt squares! The response to the project was much greater than we expected, so now we have the problem of getting enough materials- a good problem to have!

In other news, my birthday is tomorrow and I am a bit bummed out as I had hoped that by THIS birthday I would be a mother. No such luck. We have only been on the waiting list for a referral for a little under 3 months, and with a projected wait of 12-15 months we are no where near the point where we can even expect the phone call to start a dossier. I am keeping my spirits up by repeating over and over to myself : next year, next year for sure I will be a mom on my birthday! I haven't quite gotten to the point where I believe my own propoganda, but I will keep trying........

I will post a little later about another one of the reader's choice options: Bogey's Bad Day, as we could use a little comic relief on this blog, what with the "downer" I have been on lately.

Must run, as a chippie has ventured out from under the back deck and is "sunning" himself (herself? how can one tell?) on a snow pile. The boys are going bonkers, and it is hard to type with two dogs barking and pawing at me to get me to let them outside to "defend their territory" from a "very dangerous" chipmunk.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that sucks. I had some drama yesterday that made me feel whooped & emotionally exhausted - and that was bloggerland drama. Who would've thought one is not even safe from being gossiped about in bloggerland?!
Anyway, I hope you feel better and this person has some sense knocked into her. Some people just thrive on drama and competition, and they're not fun to work with on a team , that's for sure!!
Happy birthday, good luck protecting Chip and Dale, and I'll look forward to comic relief with Bogey's story!

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry for the drama. I applaud you for handling it so well. It's hard to be the "bigger" person sometimes.

I love that your dogs go bonkers over chipmunks. We have tons of bunnies in our backyard and our dogs go crazy. Although if they actually manage to get near a bunny they freeze in terror!

Oh and Happy Birthday!! You may not have a picture in your hand, or a baby in your arms, but you are well on your way to mommyhood :)

LaLa said...

Happy Birthday Mommy...you are definitely a mommy already in your heart. Of course you are Aunt Kelly to Annslee : ) Mean people just seem to thrive on causing drama b/c they love the attention..good for you for not allowing her to have it. I hope the situation is resolved soon. Oh, and I am about a week away from shipping your goodies! Sorry, if I'd known your bday was coming I would have done it already LOL

Susan said...

First of all, happy birthday! Second, I'm sorry you're having to deal with all the drama. I mean, seriously, who needs it? Good for you for not stooping to the other person's level. (It would kind of be fun, though, wouldn't it?) LOL. And last, I'm so happy little Ben seems to be feeling better. My Scottie dog loves to chase rabbits, but will never catch one unless it has a heart attack or something. They actually taunt my poor son by hopping through the picket fence, then sitting and staring at him while he goes insane. Our fur babies are too funny, aren't they?

Anonymous said...

You are really close to getting your child. If it is any help at all, but then again maybe it is just me, once I got my child I found these annoying people could not push my buttons any more.

For the first time in my life I felt so totally satisfied and content. For years people had told me "a child can not make you happy, you make you happy". Nope, a child did make me happy. She opened up my nice little life and made it spectacular.

My head was/is so full of my adoption experience (which was pretty long & bad except for the fact that I did get a wonderful child) and now it's all related to what my child is doing and what I want to do with my child ---these people found much to their shock that I just didn't care any more.

I wish them well. I know their difficult personalities must make life hard for them. I do my best to do a good job at work, social interactions, and family functions; but I have so much going on with my child, they have taken such a big back seat, there is simply no room for them in my head any more.

Third Mom said...

Happy Birthday!

The waiting is so danged hard. I sincerely hope that it goes by quickly, and that you are indeed a mom when next year's birthday comes around.

And wow - 32 inches of snow! Wait till I tell my Yooper Mom! I know it'll bring back memories, because she loves to tell the story of how they found snow behind Calumet city hall one Fourth of July. There had been so much that year that they started moving it there, and the pile grew so high that it still hadn't melted by the middle of July. She remembers walking to school on snow piles and looking into people's second story windows, too. That's a lotta snow!

Kathryn said...

It snowed here early in the week. What a downer that was! I mean, it's April people! Luckily the snow melted yesterday since it was inthe upper 40's, but I'm definitely ready for some real spring weather! Hope all is well with all of you. How's Ben?

Kathryn said...

Kelly - Have you signed up for agency's new Yahoo group, Chifirstparents - it's only for 1st time parents and it seems really grea; a real friendly bunch. There's quite a few who are using the Upper Midwest office, like us. Hope to see you there.