It was another tough day, so I took everyone out to eat, trying to get myself out of my head. Christina was in top form. She wriggled and danced and was absolutely silly the entire time. Good for taking my mind off things. Also I had pizza.
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May 4
Busy day. Dance class, birthday party, cheer practice, church meeting… Good to be busy.
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May 3
Today was better than yesterday, but that wasn’t hard to accomplish. I took another day off from work and went to the river. It was very choppy with the wind and I stared at it for a long time thinking about what to do next. In the end I talked myself into asking for help, something I rarely do. Now I just have to keep my nerve and follow through.
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April 30
After a pretty good performance on Saturday, the girls had a drop on Sunday that landed them last place. Expectations for this competition were pretty low, so it wasn’t a big surprise, but it was still a disappointment. This photo is probably my favorite of the whole year so far because it shows that despite all their struggles over the years, Billy and Robin really do love each other. It was a very hard weekend, but we came out of it together, and that’s what matters.
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April 29
Oh my god the anxiety reached a peak for me on Saturday. The girls were supposed to check in for their performance at 1:00 and at 12:57 they were still in the hotel room putting on makeup. I called Billy literally in tears, bracing myself for the possibility that they actually might miss their competition. I have no idea how they did it, but they actually managed to make it there before their warmup time and they competed. And they did well! They’d really been looking rough all week, but they really looked good. I was so proud. And exhausted.
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April 28
We are ready for cheer competition weekend! The girls have lost three team members in the last two weeks, so they’ve had to redo their whole routine at the last minute. We’ll see what this means for them, but there are four teams in their category, so they’ll at least place fourth!
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April 27
Yesterday afternoon was a complete clusterfuck. First I completely forgot about Christina’s dance class. It wasn’t until I left to pick them up that I realized my mistake. The class had already started by then and I still hadn’t picked them up, so I knew we wouldn’t make it. Then there was a Tremendous Storm. Crazy amounts of lightning and thunder, but no rain. So I took the girls to Publix to buy some drinks for a church gathering that night and a little treat for Christina to make up for abandoning her at school, and the power was out there. And by the time we left, there was this. We waited for a few minutes until it let up a little bit and ran through three inches of rain to the car. And then for some reason I decided to order a pizza? It was what we’d promised the kids the day before, so I figured why not. The pizza place is three miles from Publix, but it took us 45 minutes to get there. It was raining so hard, I couldn’t see past the front of my car. And then traffic lights were out, roads were flooded, tree branches were down, and then it took 20 minutes just to turn at one light (even though it was actually working) because traffic on the Buckman Bridge had come to a complete standstill and no one could turn. And then when we got to the pizza place, THEIR power was out. But I guess their oven runs on gas, so yay, we still got pizza. Coming home from there, an entire tree had fallen into the street, blocking an entire lane of traffic. And then I was supposed to have this church thing at 6:30 (on the other side of the Buckman Bridge) that I then had to cancel at the last minute, frantically trying to find everyone’s phone numbers. And then the girls’ cheer practice was cancelled because the gym had flooded (and they really needed that practice). All this happened in the space of about 2 1/2 hours. And then after all that, I got an email from the dance studio telling parents not to skip any more classes, which was just, like, yay, thanks. It’s not like I chose not to go. But whatever. Now on to another day.
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April 26
Billy removed the tree that was growing in our gutter above the garage today. That ALMOST makes up for leaving me with a week’s worth of dirty dishes to wash. Guess he lives to see another day.
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April 24
I really wanted to throw every one of these dishes across the room last night. I’ve come up with a chore chart for us to go over as a family as a last ditch effort to more evenly distribute the work around the house. I am on the verge of completely flipping out.
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April 23
It was another long day of training today, after which I got Christina and Jackson to join me in a quick trip to the park. The weather could not have been any more incredible, and I really regretted having to leave, but hunger calls.
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April 22
Spent 90% of the day training to facilitate NAMI family support groups. It was more exhausting than I expected. Sitting still for that amount of time is very tedious. When it was done, I took myself for a walk around the neighborhood. I needed it. And I beat the rain.
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April 21
The kids’ school hosted a movie night fundraiser at which zero people watched the movie. Kids were zooming by in every which way so that they were no more than blurred lines criss-crossing the semi-dark room. It was chaos, and all the parents sat in their folding chairs paying no attention while I curled up in Christina’s comforter and listened to the Yankees game on my headphones. If no one else cared, neither did I. I blew my WW total, too, on a day that had otherwise been going pretty well. Who knew two hot dogs and a small bag of popcorn was 29 points? Ok, I guess I knew. Oh well. Might as well throw in a beer at this point. Tomorrow is another day.
Year in Photos 