First snow, anime, jobs, deep thoughts, and family

First snow of the season came Saturday night/Sunday morning. I am thankful it came then and not this morning. My kids are still at that age where school is a magical fun place they enjoy being so snow days aren't loved just yet. It is too cold outside by the time they get home to play in the snow safely so it just sits there untouched by us. However they have had fun trying to guess which animals made all the prints they can see out the living room window.

Saturday night a few friends of the husband and I came over. We had planned on watching some anime but the problem with that is when you have friends over you tend to talk and if you do that while trying to watch anime you miss stuff. Most regular movies you can miss ten minutes and still have a pretty good idea of what is going on but most anime has a very detailed plot that drives the story along with the images. So if you ever decide to give anime a chance pay attention or you probably won't get the full effect. We ended up putting in Princess Bride for background noise and pretty much ignored the television. next time our friends plan to bring their Wii. I suppose that is better than beer pong especially if we aren't drinking anything alcoholic.

Why is it so hard to entertain ourselves as adults? You put two kids together and they are set but adults? Eep! I always feel like a bossy bitch because most of the people I tend to spend time with are indecisive so picking what we do, watch, or whatever falls to me because I am so used to being the only one who will take charge. We can't even go out to eat without an hour long where do you want to go fest. The good thing is no one seems to mind when I take charge. I try to be nice about it so that helps I suppose. My mom suggested getting some board games but my friends just aren't into those types of games it seems. The hubby gets mad because when I go out with my friends it is usually at night/early morning and we go to bars because that seems to be the only thing to do around here at that time of day. The thing I've noticed though is when you get a group of people drinking together usually random funny stuff happens often enough that you don't actually have to be doing anything to be entertained. Not that I'm advocating drinking. I wouldn't drink but it is one of the few peer pressures I give in too when I go out.

Well that paragraph when somewhere I wasn't expecting. That is one of the things I love about writing. You just never know where you might end up.

Speaking of ending, it is once again December. Another year is almost gone. I know 27 isn't considered 'old' but it feels old to me especially when I am around anyone who is younger. I'll be 28 in February and 30 looms closer and closer. A friend's facebook status actually got me thinking about it a few days ago. Why is getting older such a big deal? A pessimist would say it is that much closer to death. An optimist would say things get better as they get older like a fine wine. I'm a realist so my view is somewhere in between. I'm not scared of death. It will happen eventually to everyone, vampires and other creatures of the night excluded of course. It could happen any moment but I don't plan to worry about it beyond trying to live as healthy of a life as I'm comfortable committing to. For me that means not smoking, not drinking alcohol in excess, getting exercise of some sort each day, making sure to smile when I have the chance, and eating as healthy as I can afford to and have the patience to prepare is good. However I will not berating myself for having the occasional (or daily) candy bar. (They say dark chocolate is good for you right? ^_~)

Exercise is another thing I get really frustrated over. I know it is good for me but traditional exercise is so boring! When I was a stripper/pole dancer moving for nearly 12 hours straight and heaving my body weight up, down, around, and such was all the exercise I needed and more. My body had never looked better. Unfortunately with the change in my family's schedules and other such stuff I already covered that job is no longer an option at the moment. So my free exercise program is also out the window. My husband felt bad for a few minutes and bought me a dancer pole but it is a few inches too tall to fit in our trailer with the ceiling being only 7 feet high. Doh!

Now that my 4yo is in preschool I can crank some music and dance while I fold laundry. Glamorous eh? I miss my little princess even if she was a two legged wrecking machine who was always one step behind my cleaning making things messy again. She loves preschool and I'm pretty fond of my new me time though so it is for the best I guess. I was never the kind of person who wanted to be a parent when I was younger. Growing up in a close Catholic family with a ton of cousins of all ages meant I knew what a pain in the butt kids were and I wanted no part in it. Then puberty kicked in and I became a statistic, an unwed teen mom. Omg right? However now that I have my kiddos I love them for than I ever thought possible even if they drive me crazy sometimes. That does not mean I intend to become a further statistic and have a 3rd child. I have heard too many people say "I wish we had stopped at two.", "Our 3rd was a surprise/accident.", etc. so after my 4yo was born I got my tubes tied. When it comes up in conversation I tend to get the response "but what if you decide you want more children?" My answer? I won't. I am happy with 2. I have 2 hands and 2 kids. I know that personally I can't handle more than that. I applaud people who can though.

Some people just aren't meant to take care of children. When my 10yo was still a toddler and my husband and I both had regular jobs we had our son in day care. Looking back now I wish things had been different. The women at the day care were nice and took care of the kids but that was about it. They didn't care for kids if that makes any sense. Now, with our current situation, no jobs and on government assistance we qualify for our 4yo to go to a free preschool run by the local public school district and Parents as Teachers. This means that every person working for the preschool is working there because they love children. Our 10yo didn't start reading until 3rd grade. Our 4yo can already spell her name and the names of all her classmates. It seems ironic to me that even though our family is technically worse off in other ways things have never been better. I can't get a job right now or she would have to leave the preschool because we would make too much money to qualify for her to go there. We'd lose the kid's health insurance, our food stamps, our temporary assistance, my husband's unemployment, and more. So basically we are stuck in our current situation because the government has done such a great job giving us a hand out instead of a hand up. *face palm*

I'm not complaining per say. I'm really grateful for all that we are given and have thanks to the screwy way things work. That just isn't how I was raised. The harder you work, the better quality of work you do, and so on should get you ahead. Right? I've been told to slow down and not care so much at more than one job. They are only paying us by the hour so why should we care? The opposite of that is my friends who have commission jobs with unobtainable sales goals. Somewhere in between are the people I know scraping out a living as artists, writers, freelancers, dancers, and other non-traditional jobs. My son asked me why I wasn't going to college but daddy was. I told him daddy is the type of person who is more likely to get a good job that pays well if he has a degree where as I am more likely to do well with out needing one. Then he asked if he gets to/has to go to college. I told him we would just have to consider that when he was closer than 4th grade. My kids are way too smart for me sometimes. I guess that means I must be doing something right though.