Diffused Efforts

I am the kind of person who tries to do too much all at once. I've been working on my blog. I've been working on photography. I want to sew my little girls' diapers. & diapers for a future babe too. I have been learning how to crochet hats & animals. I have a business as a personal consultant for an energy company.

What does this translate too? A frazzled, frustrated momma. & my husband has been catching the brunt of this crazyness. I tend to spend a lot of my efforts on other things, which is unfortunate for him. I spend all my extra time with my baby. & although my husband loves her, he can't help feeling a little left out.

He's been working ten hour days. I've been doing all this. Not an equation for a happy marriage. I was reading one of my favorite blogs today (I had some catching up to do) & stumbled across this:

"Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success. 
Phase 2: When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities. 
Phase 3: When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts. 
Phase 4: Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place."

That quote comes from this blog.

Ugh. That hit me hard. So, I'm diverting my attention. I might spend a few nights a week here, but for now, I've got more important things to do...

Why is it so important to feel your boobies?

In honor of breast cancer awareness month, I decided to have a few guest writers tell their experience with breast cancer. The following is what Lindsey, a girl I went to school with & cheered on our high school football team, went through. I hope you can appreciate this for what it's worth, just as I have. 

"My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998. She was only 33-years-old. I was 8. She'd found a lump in her breast and a doctor told her it was nothing to worry about. He called it a "fifth rib."

About four months later she went back to him. He did a biopsy in his office. The next week she was given 6 months to live. Yes, six months. She started chemotherapy soon after. She was always sick from chemo and had to shave her head. Her best friend and myself made her get a wig. It took hours because she didn't want one. She was a hairdresser with very long hair. She finally picked one and named it Trixie. 

She went into remission for a year, but then it came back. She started having seizures; one happened when I was home alone with her and I had to call 911. She was diagonsed with brain cancer, cancer of the lumbar spine and liver cancer. That was when she quit smoking. She had smoked since she was a teenager. Well, with the other types of cancer, she had to do radiation, take 15+ pills a day and have surgery. And more chemo. This went on four years.

In 2002, we moved from Jamestown to Falconer after she'd sued the doctor for malpractice and won. She was getting worse and worse. My mom was 4'11 and weighed 98lbs. She suddenly gained 20lbs. It was fluid filling her abdomen, killing her. The cancer was going everywhere. She stayed in the hospital for around 2 weeks and all she wanted to do was come home. I knew she was going to die, but I was 12 and didn't get along with my dad at all...so, I refused to believe what was happening. Hospice nurses came to our house to care for her. My father (who I didn't get along with at the time, but have since re-kindled a relationship with) went to work. I wanted to help the nurses care for her, so I gave her baths and played music for her. Still, she went into a coma in her bed. Two days after coming home, the nurse came into my living room to tell me, my grandma and my uncle to say, "Lori has passed on."

All I could do was stare at her for a minute, then I ran into my mom's room. She was gone. And I was crying. I called my dad and told him, then i called my best friend. We made arrangments and I picked out a pink casket since it all started with breast cancer. No twelve-year-old should ever have to arrange a funeral. I handled it better than my family because I'd had time to get used to the idea, since I was eight I knew this would happen. Because of this, I will never smoke and I've already starting getting mamagrams. Every year, I have a team at the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life in honor of her."

Breast cancer is something that, if goes undiagnosed, can lead to serious consequences. Lori (Lindsey's mom) deserves to be honored in more than one way. Although she did think something was wrong, modern medicine will hopefully not let things like this happen again. It is our job, though, to be preventative. We need to self-exam & make it a point to have mammograms. 

Have you had yours?

Take a step back...

"Today, I will try my hardest to refrain from disliking someone, whether they "deserve" it or not.
If I can make it through today, maybe tomorrow will be easier."

I wrote that shortly after having become a mother & a family of three. It'd also only been seven months after having gotten married to my wonderful husband. It was a new, scary time. I'd just gotten used to the idea of taking care of someone else, but now I had to be responsible for this new, little life we had created.

Still - I shouldn't have said what I did, especially not about my husband whom I'm supposed to lift up & create a caring, safe environment for.

I was angry, I was dramatic, I was wrong.

Whether you believe it or not, it is my personal opinion that husbands & wives need to do their best to stick together. They need to be on the same team. Of course, that doesn't always mean they agree. But, let's face it - when your teammate makes a play you aren't expecting, you have to change what you're thinking. Often, these things happen so quickly that their team members are forced to make decisions about things they aren't even sure will work. But they do it because they have to.

I, however, don't believe that vows are a less than forever kind of thing. Some people don't mesh - their pieces of the puzzle don't fit together. & that's okay. But no matter what you think about the institution - marriage is hard. It takes work. It's not always the fairy-tale little girls grow up dreaming about. My marriage is no exception to this rule. Although we are (& have always been) a fairly docile, happy couple, that is not to say that sometimes there aren't bumps in the road.



The timeline that's set for couples depends on the couple & what they want out of life. But when you start dating, get engaged, buy a house, get married & have a baby all within two years - things can be...a little more tricky. Both of us knew we wanted to get married & have kids. We talked about it a lot in that first year of being together. The reality of the situation is quite different from the ideas floating around in mine or Dan's head.

Having to adjust to life between all that is difficult. I won't go into detail because it's not my story to tell, but I wasn't the only one in shambles over it. Dan wasn't in a place that he wanted to be, though. He wasn't my husband & he definitely wasn't the father I knew he could be.


It has taken work. Real, hard work. But we have since made up. & made better. Life is forever evolving, changing...going on. & so should a marriage.

Emotions of a frazzled wife

Today, I will try my hardest to refrain from disliking someone, whether they "deserve" it or not.

If I can make it through today, maybe tomorrow will be easier.