https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HellNKQzIMc&feature=youtu.be

it's been a long week - drabble by avsongbird- in word form and read aloud for those of you who prefer it

It’s been a long week. A productive one, don’t get me wrong, but still a long week.

The running training is going well—I’m doing the ten miles on my treadmill, five on a slow day, or when I’m just not quite feeling up to the ten. I’m taking two days off a week, just to let my body recharge before I start into it the following week, all over again.

I’m still crocheting—I just put down a half-finished green scarf I’m a little more than halfway done with, and then there’s the writing, the youtube, the family, the garden.

I’m tired, but it’s a good kind of tired, you know? Like the tired you feel after a good long run. The kind where you can take a step back and see everything you’ve accomplished so far, before you turn to see how much you have left to do.

It’s so important to take the time to do that from time to time—to take the step back and to not look at how much you have left to do (because that’ll leave you feeling tired, drained), but to look at what you have done, and how far you’ve come.

It may not be any huge milestone to anyone else, or even to you, but any progress is better than none at all.

Take me—I’m tickled shitless over ten miles a day, and five on slow days. Career runners and Olympic athletes wouldn’t think twice of such things. But I’m not doing this for the athletes. I’m not trying to win any medals.

I do it for my husband, for my stepsons, for myself. So that my family can see me pushing towards something, instead of always staying in the same place.

Goals keep you moving, keep you productive, healthy. And I figured it was about time I got working on mine.

My husband says he’s thrilled to see me working towards something I believe in—something I love—and we both agree that it’s important for the boys to see us both pursuing the things we love. And even if we fail at some point down the road, at least we can say we tried.

And even trying to pursue your goals and failing is better than being haunted by the “what if” for the rest of your life.

Keeping busy- a drabble from my blogs read audiobook style and discussed on my youtube channel

"This bugs the hell out of me, so I'm getting it off my chest. Please bear with me"- rant/drabble read and discussed on my youtube channel

Keeping Busy

               Most people I meet on a daily basis hear that I'm a housewife and automatically assume that means I have a lot of spare time to waste. And that's not necessarily true. But I'm guessing it's the same for a lot of people. It's just that a lot of the work I do is behind the scenes.

               During the week, I share my home with my husband, his 21 year old son, four small dogs, and his oldest son's German shepherd. Every weekend, we're joined by his two youngest sons, who are 12 and 10. And during the summer, his two youngest are with us even more often than they are the rest of the year.

               If not for our smallest and youngest dog, Gwen, I'd be the only female in my household, people and dogs included.

               That many people and dogs in one house makes for a busy household on its own. Some days it feels like Grand Central Station-- everyone always in the midst of either coming or going, with dogs running every which way.

               Beds to be made, meals to be cooked, laundry to be done. It keeps me busy. And I've always loved being busy.  

               I grew up in a house where my mother always kept a garden-- fruit trees, grapevines, veggies-- she made her own jellies.

               I used to dream of one day having a garden of my own. So when we bought our first house, I spent the first year settling in, getting used to being a new housewife, and learning what that meant.

               When the end of that first winter in the house was drawing to a close and the following spring was on its way, I started prepping for my first garden.

               My husband bought me miniature greenhouses, and I started my garden from seed in early February, planning on getting everything ready to go into the garden beds themselves the third week of March. (When you live in the same town for over 20 years, you learn a few things. And if there's one thing I've come to know about this town, it's that you never plant when the air first starts to feel warm that first week of March, because that second week is a mean one. No... the third week. That's when you take your plants outside, and you put them into the beds. And not a day before, otherwise you risk losing everything to the sudden cold front that always hits the second week of March.)

               That first one wasn't much to write home about, and it wouldn't have won any prizes, but I was just tickled to death to find I grew enough zucchini to make bread. It was the first time I'd ever actually planted something on my own, and sitting there, cutting those zucchini off of the vine with the boys, I remembered all those summers I spent with my mother in her garden, picking the weeds, watering the plants, harvesting the fruits and the veggies. It felt good.

               The garden is evolving year by year as I learn from my mistakes, and I learn how to change and adapt with the sometimes-unpredictable weather. The fruit trees are getting older now, and within a few years I'm hoping to get into jelly-making. Remembering the Santa Rosa plum jelly my mother used to make, and her homemade apricot jelly makes my mouth water at the thought. I want to share those memories with our boys.

               There's something about something homemade, isn't there? Homemade jellies, homemade bread (my husband makes incredible bread, but shh! Don't tell him I told you.). I've always loved homemade things. It takes thought, and time.

               My mother has always crocheted blankets of all shapes and sizes. I've seen her create amazing patterns that she just pulled out of her head, or where she'd see a picture, and she could recreate it. To this day, if you went over to her house you'd catch her curled up in her chair, working on one. Sometimes she'd work on two at a time, and she'd switch off between them whenever the store wasn't carrying the yarn she needed.

               I still to this day have blankets she made me back when I was in grade school, and I love that-- knowing they're the same blankets I had on my bed the whole time I was growing up, and that when I'm homesick or missing my parents, I can curl up in them again.

               Now I'm the one you'll catch curled up in a chair or in front of my computer, music or movie going and me working on a blanket. Mine are nowhere near as intricate or gorgeous as my mother's are, but hey, I'm learning, and I figure that's something.

               After we first moved into the house, that first winter I saw the boys huddled up on the couch in their comforters, so on a whim I sat down and made throw blankets to keep on the arm of the couch for them to use. It felt good to see them reaching instinctively for the blankets I'd made a month or so later, when I finished them, as though they'd always done it.

               My mother made them each a blanket in their favorite colors, and, remembering how I felt about the blankets she'd once made for me, I asked them if they'd like me to make them each one, and they said they would.

               His middle son picked camouflage yarn, so we brought it home and I got to work. Over the next month, I worked on it every night, sat down with my music or my movies after the house was clean and the laundry and dishes were done, waiting until my husband would come home from work. Some nights I worked all night, trying to get it done for him.

               And then, finally, the last stitch was done, and I threw it in the washer. By the time he showed up that next weekend and came walking into his room, it was on his bed.

               He's slept with it every night since. And when we curl up in the living room to watch our movies, he drags it out with him, and he curls up in it. My gaze slips over to him from time to time, and I can't help but smile to know that something I made means so much to him. It's an indescribable feeling, knowing he loves something I made just for him.

               The youngest is next-- his favorite Avenger is Captain America, so he declared his blanket HAS to be red, white, and blue. He would've liked if I could've made the blanket look like Cap's shield, but hey, I'm only human, and he understands that.

               He's my little gardener, my little chef. Every time he catches me in the kitchen or the garden, he follows me, and he helps me, determined to learn any and everything he can get his hands on.

               Our middle son loves the kitchen, and he loves learning to cook, but he's more our thinker, our dreamer, so he leaves all the dirtiest garden work to me and the youngest.

               All things considered, with everything else I have going on and getting back into my runner's training, I can't really think of any point in the day where I stop to catch my breath, aside from when I'm here, at my laptop, writing, blogging, listening to music or watching movies and working on my blanket.

               But I like it that way. Moving into our house that first day, bringing the boxes inside, it was just a house-- just four walls and a roof with a door. But after we brought our things inside, after we painted the walls and I planted my garden, my roses-- those four walls began to feel more like a home.

               Growing up, I guess I never realized how much my mom did for us, as a mom, or for my dad, as a wife.

               Now, being a wife and a stepmom myself, I think I'm beginning to understand what it means to really be those things, to have a home and a family of my own to care for.

               And every year, the garden's getting better. Every year, the trees are growing taller, and the grapes are getting bigger.

               Every year, with each and every project undertaken, this house is becoming more a home. And I love knowing that, and that I can be a part of it. That the things I make and the things I do make a difference, even if it is just inside these walls, with my family.

               And with each and every project I finish within these walls, I find myself looking forward to my next big project. 

This bugs the hell out of me, so I'm getting it off my chest. Please bear with me.

             Who the hell was it who woke up one day and decided that when someone gets married, they cannot look at or talk to members of the opposite sex outside of their family members without everyone else chipping in their two cents and labeling them a cheater or a whore or a player or automatically assuming that they're "playing the field"? I'm a married woman, and I love my husband. There's honestly nothing in this world I wouldn't do or give for him. And when we exchanged our vows back in 2009, I meant every word.

             I've never cheated on my husband. I've never even been tempted. Is our married life perfect? No. We're human, we're not perfect, and it's ludicrous to believe anyone could be. Every relationship you'll ever be in, romantic or otherwise in your life, is going to have its ups and downs, and that's part of what makes it worth it. You remember the highs to get you through the lows. You look back at the rough patches and remember having each other to get you through it. To show you the silver lining through the clouds.

               What the hell kind of a life do you have without people you love to share it with? People you can laugh and cry and be yourself with and not have to worry about pretending to be anything but who and what you are with?

               I've never had my own massive entourage of friends, in fact I've always been pretty introverted by nature, but I was never without a handful of really close, really incredible friends. Friends who could call me at three in the morning and cry if they needed, or come over and eat ice cream and tell me about their problems. I once had a friend actually call me at 3 in the morning and we spent the remainder of the night driving around in her car so she could tell me about her problems and I could help her out in any way I could.

               Another time a friend of mine called me up, having relationship problems, so we swung by a drive thru, picked up dinner, and drove out and sat by the freeway and ate and watched the cars pass us by till the sun went down, and we talked him through it.

               Yeah, I said him.

               And yeah, some of my closest friends have been guys throughout the course of my life. My best friend from the beginning of seventh grade all the way through high school was a guy.  To this day he knows if there was ever anything he needed, he could pick up the phone and I'd be there.

               Why should I stop being there for people just because I fell in love and got married? So some of my friends are still guys? So I enjoy their company. So what? Yes, my husband knows about it, yes my husband knows my friends personally. No, that doesn't mean I've ever cheated on my husband or considered it or that I'm looking to cheat down the road, and to be honest, the only man who should be concerned about it is my husband. I don't understand people, where they find out that I like talking to people, meeting new people, and they feel they suddenly need to hop up on that soapbox and read me the riot act about how I should shut myself in and cease to talk to everyone of the opposite sex because *gasp* I'm the reason they send me dirty messages, and I should go offline so that they're not tempted to send them to me.

               That their behavior and their way of treating women is my fault.

               And no, I'm not trolling dating sites, I'm not all over hookup sites. That would be one thing. I'm talking social sites here people. Facebook, or myspace style sites. Risque, I know. I should be ashamed of myself, apparently.

               But you know what? Even if I caved, and I did go offline and become a hermit, some other woman would be the one they sent such messages to. And it wouldn't be her fault either. It shouldn't be about whether we're married, whether we're not. That's between us and our spouses. It should be about respecting the person. (And yes, I'm talking about respect for the guys too!) If you don't agree with what they're doing, that's fine; you're more than entitled to your opinion. Move on. What's the point in reading them the riot act? What do you really accomplish other than making yourself sound like an ass in front of everyone else who reads what you have to say, and getting backed up by other likeminded, close minded, judgmental people? Why all the negativity?  Life is already too damned short as it is!

               I've always been an open-minded person. I've always loved meeting new people from all walks of life and hearing them talk about themselves at length-- their different backgrounds, their different religions, their passions, their hopes, their dreams. I love nothing more than watching them light up when they talk about something they love, something they're passionate about.

               I love people on a person by person basis. I've been that way all my life. I don't understand why I should have to give that up now, and honestly, I have no intentions of it. I shouldn't have to change who I am to become this little cookie cutter image of what people think I should be. I'm a good person, I'm a caring, honest, passionate, friendly and loyal sort of person with a good heart. And I have no intentions on ever changing that.

                Thank you so much for letting me vent about it, whoever's still reading my rant, if anyone. I know I should just continue to ignore and to block the negative people, as I've always done, but I guess I just don't understand why people treat other people with so little respect. It's always bugged the ever-living hell out of me.