Well....

It has been a while. I can't think of anything to "blog" about. But I had noticed that it had been some time since I posted anything new. What's new.....nothing. My life as usual is in chaos and madness. I guess I could write about that.... What else? My hair is driving me insane but again that is nothing new. I don't know how much longer I can keep up this whole "growing it out" stuff. I am so bored of my hair....bored of the length, bored of the color....bored, bored, bored. Which isn't too surprising because usually when my life is about to make some dramatic turn that I feel like I have no control over I change my hair because it seems to be the only thing I can control. Kinda like how an anorexic person feels like their life is so out of control that at least they can control what they eat....you know that compulsion seems a little more productive lol.....awwwww so yeah I still can't seem to accept the fact that any weight loss I will have will be slow and actually require effort. Okay so really what's happening these days Emily...is what you are probably thinking...maybe I could give you a quick rundown.

Well first maybe a review then a rundown....

February 2008 moved to Santa Barbara to be with Mitch at UCSB
June 2008 Mitch graduated and I unexpectedly got pregnant...didn't tell anyone til Oct.
Novemeber 2008 quit my job and moved back to NorCal to live with Mitch's family. The plan was to live there while Mitch tried to find a job and hopefully be out before the baby.
March 2009 Olivia Marie Benveniste was born...best day ever...followed by the 2 day hospital stay which was probably the happiest 2 days of my life.

Things got stressful. We were still living with Mitch's parents and 2 sisters and 2 dogs in a small house and then a bunch of other stuff started to go down with his Dad's health and Grandmother's Health and Mitch lost his job...there was no moving out. The stress of having a new baby in a house full of people got to us and we fought ALOT....this added more stress to everyone else living there with all their other stresses. People were always getting involved in our fights...people took sides...usually mine and it was just a disaster...

Septemeber 2009 Olivia and I moved out and into my parents house. It wasn't my choice really but I didn't blame his parents for needing to eliminate "our problems" from their own mounting problems. I didn't want to go, I didn't want to stay either...didn't know what to do except cry ALOT usually in the shower where no one knew about it. Mitch got a job with his Dad's company but it was contract type thing so he would work and then get laid off...and so on and so on. Things got better. It was good for Olivia to be in a quieter home...less people to interrupt naps and what not. I felt like I could breathe...things got better with Mitchell and I. My parents gave us a deadline to move out in March 2010...that seemed like it could work.

End of January 2010 Mitchell's Grandmother passes away and he gets laid off indefinitely. March is getting closer and it looks like we won't be moving out. Everyone seems to quietly acknowledge it isn't going to happen.

March 2010. Squidey's birthday!!!!! She is one year old and the only thing that makes me happy in life...although she is good at driving me crazy too!

May 2010 Mitch gets a contract to work again for at least 6 months if not longer. Mom and dad give a new move out date of Sept 1 2010

June 2010 the jobs he was contracted to do get canceled. He does work for the state so no money no new computers installed in state facilities.

July 2010 Mitch starts working with his Uncle and is contracted for at least a year....yay we can move out.

August 2010 Mitch who has a congenitive heart defect since birth has pain in his chest and arm...thinks he might be having a heart attack....after a sleepless night decides that even though he has no health insurance he would rather be safe than dead and goes to urgent care to get a EKG....they call 911 and an ambulance rushes him to the ER. He didn't have a heart attack but found out they he has developed a common and fairly benign complication due to his heart condition. A "right bundle branch blockage"...something that he could live the rest of his life with that will occasionally cause weird sensations in his beating heart, but not likely kill him any sooner than usual...but he has a weaker heart anyway from a birth defect that led to open heart surgery at 5 months of age. Sooooooo MASSIVE HOSPITAL AND AMBULANCE BILL....

He takes the following week off of work...works a week and then finds out that there is no work the next week...so August will be a month of just 2 weeks of pay instead of 4. So with car payments, insurance, student loans...etc...there seems to be no money left over to move out with...and since we are both pretty good procrastinators of course we have waited until the absolute deadline of Sept 1 to plan on moving out....well now it looks like it's not happening.

But wait.....there is a solution....thanks to Mitchell of course.

"My parents say you can move back in over here for a couple of months or maybe since they want to move anyway we can find a bigger house and help pay the rent or mortgage and then we would have more space".....

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What??????

Okay now this isn't the first time Mitchell has suggested this and there was a time when one of his sisters was going to move out and there would be a spare room so Olivia would have her own room and me moving back in was suggested again. She didn't and I didn't want to move back in anyhow. Also the job Mitchell works requires that he travels so he is gone 5 days a week so I am all alone to take care of Olivia 24/5. That's 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Now I love the Benvenistes just like they are my own family, well they are my family for all intents and purposes...but I really really don't want to live with someone's parents, be it mine or his....just been doing since I was 6 months pregnant and I am OVER IT.

But now it's like what choice do I have? It has been suggested that I get a job to help out with money and I would get a job and have applied for some but rarely do I get a call back. The ones I do hear from either want me to work overnight or full time. Since it's just me and Olivia because Mitch is out of town during the week it's just problematic with Olivia and childcare and I am not going to be away from her fulltime...so what she never sees her mother or father...yeah no way.

So here I am....on the cusp of reliving my life of a year ago at Mitchell's parents house. Only this time with a crazy deftly mobile investigative child instead of a stationary newborn.....have you been to that house? Not exactly baby-proof and definitely not as big as the one she is used to living in. And don't get me started on all the emotional aspects of this whole thing....

Well since you mentioned it....

It breaks my heart that Olivia got the boot from the only home she ever knew as a newborn...now she is getting the boot from the home she has really become to know as "her home". It breaks my heart that she will be confused. She will come visit "nana and Grandpa Larsen" and run to her room and all her stuff will be gone. She is a smart baby and she will not understand why all this is happening. I mean I was sad about it anyway even when I thought we would be moving into our own place as a family (me, mitch and Olive) but that is what is supposed to be happening. Now it's putting her through all this to just move back. It breaks my heart for her and for me as a first time mother that she never had a nursery and she has never had her own room...depressed, depressed, depressed.

I recently read a book in which a young girl grows up with a struggling single mother. The daughter once says something about always moving and never feeling like she had a home. The mother replies "I am your home". While the mother was a pretty selfish self-centered person and not likable at all in this book....that quote resonated with me, it touched me as a mother, as a daughter....it just felt so true and yet so simple. That as long as you have your mother, maybe that's all the home you need.....in mine and Olivia's case I hope that is true.