Overworked and Underpaid

It's impossible to describe how much I miss you every day. I think about you so often I'm sure it must be unhealthy. I wonder what you are doing, and part of me is terrified that you don't miss me as much. I sometimes wonder if you don't mind being away from me, but I know that's not true.

 It's so hard sitting and waiting for you to come home, only to know that you'll be leaving again in 3 days. It must be equally hard for you, I don't know how you do it.

I'm torn: part of me understands and agrees that you can't let yourself miss me as much as you do: because it might distract you and make it harder for you to be away. And part of me just wants to hear you cry how much it hears to be apart so long. That's my emotional part: the one that wants so badly to talk to you for hours on end when you call, even though I know that's not possible. Did you know I take the phone with me everywhere I go; even to get the mail, just in case you call? It's really hard to remind myself sometimes that you can't always be available to talk if I call. Or that sometimes you need to be quick to get off the phone.  I guess I'm just scared that you feel you "have better things to do" than talk to me, which I know (mostly) is silly. I don't blame you for not being physically here for me when I "need a hug" or need someone to talk to. This is your career, and it's going to be a hard life to get used to, but we gotta do what we gotta do. I married you because I love you with all my heart, no matter ow many miles away you are. I'm willing to take, and work through whatever comes our way during our marriage.

At times like this, where I just had a paranoid "he's avoiding me" episode, I sit afterward and feel so stupid and bad that I tried to call you on it. I don't know how you put  up with me sometimes, being so needy, you must love me alot!

I don't mean to be so hard on you sometimes, I know you're busy. I'm sorry. Just give me time, I'll get used to it. While it may not always be easy for me (or you), I'm sure it'll get easier.

You are the love of my life, and I promise to try my hardest to be the best wife to you I could possible be.

I love you.

For this blog anyway. And who knows how long that promise will last. I've gone ahead and deleted all of the links of blogs I read and loved at one time. I probably would still love them too, only until I realized how much better they are at blogging than I am, and how hopeless my posts really are. But that's ok, I'm writing this for me, and if no one reads it, that's fine. At least that internal pressure to entertain and amuse is off of me for now.

Mr. M  got a job with a trucking company in February. They're based out in New Brunswick but have a terminal here in Winnipeg. The first 12 weeks is apparently training weeks, and therefore have the shittiest pay possible. He's only been home every 2nd or 3rd weekend for 3-4 days at a time.

Some days, it seems easy. Some days I feel like screaming, I hate this life, I hate his career choice,  I hate him being gone. Most days I ping-pong between the two. I definitely didn't prepare myself for him being gone. It's not so much not having him physically here, it's more not being able to connect with him anymore. Not being able to tell him about my day, or hearing about his. Phone calls are always short (and not always so sweet). It don't know why I didn't see it coming, seeing as I'm more emotional and needy, but I should've known that he wouldn't be giving me all of the sap that I want to give him. He doesn't tell me he misses me. His "I love you"'s are generic and not so genuine sounding. He doesn't tell me things like he can't wait to be home to see me, hold me, kiss me, snuggle me. All these things I want him to say so bad, and yet I have to remember, he's just not like that. Sure, maybe for the first year we were together, but I remind myself that all long term relationships are like that in the beginning.  Alright, I'm making him sound bad, but I'm really not meaning to. I don't doubt he loves me, I don't doubt he misses me. I just want the sappy romance stuff that chic flicks are made of. It's hard not to take the quick phone calls, the bitchiness (because he hasn't slept properly in 2 weeks), and the lack of sweet nothings personally. If he were here, I know he'd be giving me too much affection, that I'd be rolling my eyes and pushing him away. And I think of that now, and wonder, "how could I do that?" I'd give anything for that right now! I guess because he's not here, I expect him to feel the way I do. And maybe he does, but he just doesn't show it. 

It must be equally hard for him, in different ways, to be on the road for so long. I sit and wait for him to come home, and he's probably yearning just as hard for a good sleep in his own bed. I mean, it's not like he's distant to me when he does come home, so what the fuck am I worrying about? This is his career now. Get the fuck used to it. 

It looks like it's been awhile since I've written on here. And honestly, I don't even know if I have anything worthy enough to keep writing on here, but hey, I can dream.

 Alot has changed since this bitter young mom sat behind this screen and typed these attempted interesting posts. I'm no longer a stay at home mom. Nope, I've projected myself out into the working world and I love it.... mostly.
I love being able to talk with adults about other real world stuff, and not just parenting. And when I DO talk about my kids, I'm telling them stories of their cuter moments and milestones achieved. It gives me a whole new feeling of joy when I walk in the door and have them running to me screaming "Mommy mommy!" because they're happy to see me. It gives me a chance to miss them throughout the day and really look forward to and enjoy the time I spend with them at home. Although, I must admit, I may be one of the few people in the world that sometimes looks forward to Monday morning.

 I finally am at a job that I feel I could keep as a career. I am working at the city's main branch of a major bank, processing loans, mortgages, lines of credit, and basically all other areas of  account maintenance. The pace is fast, always busy and usually challenging. At least my mind is kept busy and I don't have time to sulk and be bitter about any shitty areas of my life. Having been there for only 6 months, I am already part of a committee to look for ways to improve the working environment of the bank. (there is only 1 person from each department chosen to be on this committee, along with the branch manager). You watch, in a few years, I'll be moving up lol.

And now, Mr. M is working toward his career too.  He just passed his testing for a Class 1 license and will be driving truck pretty soon! *sigh* a truckers wife. The money is good, but I'm not looking forward to playing the single mom role when he's on the road. Although it's alot better than him being in the military, which he backed out of  at the last minute a few years ago.

So, things in my life still continue to change. I have yet to reach the sense of stability and normalcy of the family with the white picket fence, 2.5 kids and the dog named Spot. Instead, I have 2 kids, 2 cats, one which is sick, and a sink full of dirty dishes.

I can't believe it. They hired me. They like me, they really like me! *dramatic cry* No seriously, the job interview I had at the bank must not have gone as bad as I thought it did.

She called me on Friday, the night before my wedding, but with the wedding going on, and then going away for our honeymoon, I didn't have time to post about it. But today, I went to sign all of the papers and make it official (pending satisfactory reference checks and criminal record check). I'm a little nervous about my references... my job history is shaky, I can't seem to hold a job down for too long, especially when it's full time, and the job that I did manage to keep for just over 2 years, ended on a bad note, so really, I don't have very many good references. I'm hoping that when she calls my most recent employer, she'll put two and two together, so that when he says how my absenteeism became a little excessive, she'll remember that I was also pregnant at the time. Oh, and the job before that? I had to prepare her that she might not get a good reference for that one, seeing as they fired me after only a month for a ridiculous reason.

I admitted to her that I thought my interview was terrible, and that I was surprisingly more nervous that I thought I'd be, and I was surprised that she even called me back. She assured me that nervousness is a good thing, and that it was my experience, enthusiasm and computer knowledge that sold her.

I start work June 11th. I get my own desk. I get my own phone. I get my own computer. Wow. Do I ever feel elite now, working in the back offices of the bank, your accounts at my fingertips. *evil cackle*.  Well I'm serious about everything except the last part. I am really excited and DO feel somewhat prestigeous. One thing I'm nervous about: I start at 8:30 am. I live on the other side of the city, which means I have to be out the door by 7am, which means I have to be up at 6am. I'm notorious for hitting the snooze button and waking up thinking that I actually forgot to even set the alarm, and I'm a little bit apprehensive about screwing this up all because I can't get up on time. But I must. I think I can I think I can.

Wage is a little higher than I expected, which is always a good thing, especially seeing as half of my paycheques will be going to childcare. I'm nervous about leaving Little Miss. She's very selective of who can watch her. Mini M I'm not worried about, he's been in daycares before and easily adapts as long as there's toys to play with and room to run around.  

I hope this works out for me.  

I've mentioned a few times that I have an upcoming wedding. Well the wedding has come and gone and it went pretty well, but of course, there is never any big, planned event that goes flawlessly.

Wait, maybe I shouldn't start off such a happy occasion by describing the bad undesired points.

Yes, I can brag, I looked gorgeous. A far cry from my everyday ponytail and slapped on makeup (if any), I was a worn down, stressed out mom disguised as a beautiful Princess. My hair was let down, curled with two different size irons, and baby's breath throughout. My off-the-shoulder dress looked great, albeit it was a little too loose at the top, so when I dropped my arms to the side and slightly to the front of my, the front caved and showed off the top of my new $170 boustier (shit, it's expensive to have big boobs!)

I blew Mr. M away; he had tears as he saw me walk in the room, which gave me tears... it was such a sappy happy moment.

It was a small wedding (compared to most traditional weddings), only about 50 people. We held it in two combined conference rooms of a semi-small but well known hotel chain. My parents did an excellent job of decorating, so in no way did it have an executive type of feeling that the room is suppose to give off. We were lucky because Mr. M's mom has a close friend who is liscenced to perform weddings, and so, as her gift to us, she married us for free. We were originally going to say our own vows, but Mr. M had been working alot and didn't really have time to think and write them and didn't want them to turn out half-assed. So instead, I looked at 4 different ceremonies, picked parts from each, and compiled a customized ceremony for the Officiant to perform. The exchanging of the rings piece I added in on my own, and is what (I'm told) produced the most tears from our guests:

"Lisa, today I become your husband and you become my wife. I will strive to give you the best of myself while accepting you the way you are. I promise to keep myself open to you, to let you in to my innermost fears and feelings, secrets and dreams. I promise to grow along with you, to be willing to face change, and keep our relationship alive and exciting. And finally, I promise to love you in good times and bad, with all I have to give and all that I am, in the only way I know how, completely and forever."

 We kissed, we had pictures, we became husband and wife. Unfortuantely, I didn't get all of the pictures I would've liked, and wish someone had been kneeling near the front and getting specific types of shots, (we didn't have a professional photographer), but I guess that's something that should've been planned for ahead of time. I did manage to get some beautiful pictures from people, so either way, the day was captured. 

One reason we chose to get married in this conference room, was so that everything could all be done in one place: our ceremony, food and cake, and booze, all in the same room. No one had to worry about leaving a church to go to a hall. No one had to worry about what to do for the usual hour or two of spare time between the ceremony and reception. No one had to worry about staying clean during transfer because it was raining outside. (I know I know, bad omen, right?) The food was great; a huge abundance of it... something I was worried about because Mr. M's mom (whom I should now be calling my mother in law) was in charge of supplying it... and her being on her huge Weight Watchers kick, I was worried about taste (was everything go to be low fat and/or bland?) _{Not to say that all low fat food is tasteless} and was there going to be enough of it? Surprisingly, there was enough food, despite the fact that the deviled eggs were gone within minutes (they only made 60 for a guest expectancy of 50 people) and the breaded chicken bites (something I knew would go quickly....). Even with those gone, there was plenty of pasta salad, coleslaw, finger sandwiches and fruits and veggies to choose from. Not to mention the cake. My God it was a big cake. My friend that lives down the hall agreed to make it for me, after she had shown me a picture of one she'd made for a friend years ago and I had beat it out of her asked her very nicely to do mine. The cake didn't go perfectly as planned, but here it is: (Mr. M's name is blurred out) (and sorry, the picture gets cut off on here for some reason)

The vines were originally supposed to be a maroon/burgundy colour, but we couldn't get it even close, and it always came out a purplish-pinkish tint... so we settled with this colour, which actually worked quite well...

But enough with that now, whats a blog for if you can't bitch, right?

My biggest piss off? I spent hours creating a music mix suited for the wedding. Over four hours worth of music, I arranged songs so they flowed together nicely, a perfect mix of slow sappy love songs, combined with uptempo, careful not to group too much country together (or have too much country in the first place), careful to select songs that didn't speak of infedelity or heart ache, careful to select music that even the grandma's could somewhat stand to listen to. I mean it, I was damn proud of this mix. I envisioned getting married, everyone sitting down with a glass of wine with their meal, and then, an hour or so into it, people would start drinking, it'd turn into a party, a celebration.  The reality of it was: we got married, people sat and ate and talked. That was it. I kept on trying to turn the music on and turn it up, and my darling Mother in Law kept on turning it down, or even off. When I approached her about it, she said "Oh, well so and so can't hear so and so talking. It's only meant to be background music anyway."  Um. No. It's not meant to be background music. It's meant to be a party. Not the old hens to sit and nibble on some crumpets and tea.  I'd turn it up. She'd turn it off. All of the time spent on the music, wasted. It was my party, and even *I* was bored by 5pm (it started at 3, was supposed to go until 8).  I wanted people to hear the music, so what if there wasn't much room to dance. At least hear it, get a little pumped, and drink! We didn't even finish one bottle of hard alcohol. And here my dad and I were worrying that there wouldn't be enough booze. We didn't even have to open a 2nd bottle. I know it was early in the day, and I know it wasn't the exact kind of party atmosphere with all of the proper lighting and a dance floor to let loose on, but personally, I can drink and get drunk as long as the mood is right; a mix of people willing to consume alcohol with you, and a mix of music to drink to. Both of those criteria were not met because she kept on turning the fucking music off!!!! So it was just a room of people, sitting at their tables, talking to those beside or across from them. Sure, the music wasn't the ONLY reason people didn't drink, but I can guarentee it played a huge ass part in it. I didn't give a shit if all of the old ladies couldn't hear the others talking... they'd STILL have to talk louder even if the room was dead silent, due to old age and hearing loss (oh how insensitive of me), but for crying out loud!!!!! I was pissed about that!!!!! And even still am, if you haven't noticed. Wouldn't you be? Four hours of music, and even double that amount of time to prepare it, and someone keeps on shutting it off on your wedding day?!?!?!

Alright. I'll stop bitching about that now.  

We decided to leave the wedding around 6:30. We had done enough mingling and wanted to create our own little party in the hotel room we got for the night. Got upstairs, got undressed, had some amazing sex. Got into our bathing suits, headed down to the pool/hot tub, only to find it packed with a bunch of teenage kids, screaming, splashing, jumping. Our luck we booked the weekend that the hotel was accomodating 2 packs of teenage baseball teams. Not exactly the relaxing wedding night we'd hoped for. We lasted only 10 minutes in the hot tub before going back up to our room. Undress. More sex. (hey, gotta say it, it's not often we get a hotel room with a bottle of rum and no kids). After that, it was a pretty quiet night. We counted all of the presentation money read and adored over the cards people gave us, watched a little bit of TV and ended up crashing around 11pm (a night of undisturbed sleep ahead of me, I couldn't complain).

All in all, it was a good wedding. Things didn't go exactly as planned. I envisioned some events playing out a bit more exciting than they turned out to be, but, I'm happy. I did the main thing that I meant to do; to marry the love of my life. *sap sap sap*