Add Life and Mix Well
July 2nd, 2009 | 
Author:
Add 2 parts stress, a desk job, an overworked husband and 3 kids, mix well and you have my life! To some this may sound ideal but this morning I am going to vent a little bit so sorry guys 
. Do you ever have that feeling of being anxious, worried and out of control? For about the past 2 weeks that is how I have felt. When you think about what makes you happy and what is ideal to you , in your life. Are you there right now in that place? Just to give you an example here is my typical day:
- 6:00 a.m. get up hurry and try to fit 4 hours into 2. Give orders to my sleepy children who's names I am starting to forget.
- 8:35 a.m. run out the door like a mad woman because I am late again for the job that breaks my spirit.
- 9:05 a.m. try no to have an anxiety attack as I pull into work and see that my boss knows I am 5 minutes late.
- 9:06 a.m. to 4:00p.m. Work on a job that I am doing because I HAVE to not because I want to. Because it is a good job and I should be grateful to have it right now. So I just need to SUCK IT UP!
- 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. try to spend time with my children who are raising themselves right now, find my over worked husband that I cannot remember what he looks like. Try not to let my disater area home, yard, laundry and everything else get to me. Look for something to cook for dinner, give up and explain to my children, who's names I forget, that another Yo Yo night is normal. *Yo Yo = Your On Your Own
- 9:30 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. talk with a man that looks similar to my overworked husband about what we are going to do, because this is not the life we had planned out for us. He falls asleep from exhaustion and I dive into cyber space, checking to see if I am famous yet so we can have the life we had planned for us 10 years ago. Hey, it can happen!
- Get Up and DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN! AHHHHHH it's making me crazy!
There you have it. The cocktail of my life! Mix it all together and you have a Shannon-Mopolitain. I have come to find that this is the life that most everyone has. My problem is that I have always known it would be different. When my husband Mr. Fabulous and I got married 10 years ago next week, we talked about how our life was going to be on our little farm. How we were going to do things with our kids and how we were going to sit on our front porch together and drink coffee every morning while looking at the lake. Then life happened. We rush through the day run past the chairs on the porch and forget we live on the lake.
To me it is heart-wrenching. I really feel like my spirit has been broken. Is it okay to want your dreams to become reality, to want more out of life and to not just settle because that's what people do? How do you find time in a world that sucks every waking minute out of you? Is it okay that anytime someone mentions they are going on a family vacation, that I want to pull their hair out and start their house on fire out of pure jealousy? Have you watched the movie Dick and Jane with Jim Carrey? I love that movie! We were watching it the other day and seriously were thinking about just going out and robbing banks. Hey, don't judge if you have seen the movie you know you thought about it to!
I miss my family. I know I am married to Mr. Fabulous, a very handsome man that is lost right now in his shop buried under piles of work. I also miss my 5 oh... I mean 3 kids that have unfamiliar faces because they are growing so fast and it is passing right by me. We will get through this and we will win this battle against conforming to so called "normal life." We are not normal, never have been. We are weird as hell and expect to much, to much time together, to many free nights to laugh and enjoy each others company and to many mornings on the porch sharing our hopes and dreams for our beautiful little family. You can never want to much when it comes to time with those you love. The best part of it all is the feel they same way right back!
A timeless Shannon
Posted in Fabulous thoughts of Shannon, Family, Mom & Kids | 
Tags: change, children, cocktail, dad, diet, Diet Buddy, diet help, diet motivation, dream, family, friends, friends on a diet, funny, grateful, health, help, hope, humor, incentive, inspiration, journey, life, looking for weight loss stories, Mom, mom blog, motivation, progress, proud, strong woman, superwoman, utah, utah county bloggers, weight gain, weight loss story, weightloss
Good for you for venting! ((Hugs))
I love this post! You are so right…life is crazy…is this what we signed up for? NOT! Sometimes, I think we do it to ourselves…we..as in women. We multi-task..and we are good at it..so we are continually asked to do more and we graciously accept.
When we do get down time…we often find five things to do at once because we don’t know how to be calm and relax. At least that’s how it is with me. I may try to drink a cup of coffee watching the news, and then I’m looking at a magazine, marching upstairs to collect garbage, see clothes that need washing…etc…etc..etc.…
Hmmm…I wish I had an answer for you, but I think only you and your husband can come up with the answer.
I hope you find it! Life is too short to be living one that you’re not happy with. I think it’s all about balance, you’ve got to find a balance in your life that allows you all the things you love as well as the things you have to do.
Oh Shannon. I can so relate… my husband and I are very fortunate to have jobs that we really love, but STILL we never have enough time for each other, the kids, the things we want to do. A death in the family recently made us both re-evaluate everything and try to figure out how to make the most of what time we have left. It could be 30 years or 30 days, we just never know, do we?
And: you live in a lake?? With a porch? That is so awesome. I do hope you can find a way to slow down and enjoy that beauty!
I can totaly relate to this post!
- Lisa
Can I add your site to mine?
I think that many of us have been where you are. I know I’ve been there, the job that was no longer rewarding, missing my child and my husband, etc. Heck, I might still be there and I’ve just gotten used to it. Which I hope that isn’t the case.
Some struggles just seem to be part of life and while we don’t like them, sometimes there is a lesson to be learned from all of it. Ya know? I understand one must work but maybe it’s time to make an appointment with your porch and/or the lake. Schedule yourself some time to just kick back!
Good Luck
Wow, sounds familiar. Replace the 3 kids with one, and you’ve got something similar to my life right now.
Be strong and you’ll pull through!
There’s a song I heard recently (it’s a country song), I believe the name is “Sounds Like Life to Me”. Basically one guy vents about his problems at home, and the other says it sounds like life. Don’t let it get you down, remember we’re all here whenever you need to vent.
i’m a sahm and i still feel like you do. i feel like there’s more to my life than what is going on it right now. my husband is gone 11–12 hours a day when he works. when he’s off, he’s trying to catch up on everything else. sometimes i feel that no matter what situation we’re in, we are always gonna want someone else has. we are going on a family vacation in a few weeks, but this is not something we can do every year. for the first time we get to take my 22 yr old w us. so that makes me happy.
Okay Shanny pants… now is when I kick you in the a$$! (I will do this out of love because you have done it for me oh so many times!)
Take a deep breath and be grateful you have a family to miss and a job to hate>
We are so blessed with more than so many people in the world… we even have enough food to eat to make us fat! 
Your family loves you and you ARE a great wife and mom. Your kids are not deprived and it is all good! Enjoy the moments you do get with you family and make the most of them.
You know I totally get how you feel… so save this comment and post it on my next “life sucks” post! LOL
You are amazing and I really look up to you!
XO Angie
I’m right there with you, Shannon! Except my 3rd kid is my mom.
It got WAY too crazy there for a while. It was the last few weeks of school right into the first few weeks of summer…Mom was ailing, then hospitalized, then needed extra help post-hospitalization. All too much for me!
I recently re-read a chapter from Martha Beck’s book The Four Day Win. The book is about psychologically preparing yourself to lose the weight and keep it off forever. The chapter I read was specifically about the results of a study where drug-addicted rats were placed into either “rat-trap” (undesirable) settings or “rat-park” (very desirable) settings. The rat-trap rats took the drug-laced sugar water offered them, whereas the rat-park rats avoided it, even suffering through withdrawal symptoms.
Here’s the takeaway: design your life so that it looks more like a park than a trap, and you won’t need the drugs/food to make the pain go away.
That’s what I’ve been working on and thinking about ever since.
Hang in there!
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So now is not a good time to tell you I am spending 10 days on vacation and doing family stuff. Please no hair pulling as it is getting thinner each year as is.
I will take some video and some great Grand Canyon pictures for you to look at when I get back. Perhaps even make it into a “Virtual Vacation”.
When I get with people that feel all hell is breaking loose my favorite saying is “This too will pass!” Followed quickly with “Keep breathing!” Take a few minutes (sounds like that is all you have) and breath in, as you breath out imagine letting all the tension go with your out breath. You will be suprized (or loose total faith in me to teach you anything) how relaxing even 10 deep breaths at the right time during the day can feel.
There are many key areas of health and inner peace is certainly one to take some time for.
May the peace faeries bring you waves of inner peace soon! Till then when tension builds in one area, shift to something else for a few minutes and then go back to it. You will have at least got a quick break from it.
Be Blessed! You deserve it!
Shannon, so many of us are feeling the same push and pull that you are. You are blessed with a beautiful family and fabulous friends, enjoy every second you can with them. The hell with the house and laundry, etc. it will always be there waiting. Tomorrow is guaranteed to no one.
Take care and hang in there!!!!
I just want to say thank you for all of the super great comments. I knew when I posted this that I was not alone and that all of you would be there for me. Seriously I have said it before and I will say it again…WE COULD NEVER DO THIS WITHOUT ALL OF OUR FABULOUS FRIENDS!
XOXOXOXO
Shannon
i feel the same way about my office job. and of course i know with this economy itd be stupid to quit. altho i have a lot less in my life going on than you do. good luck!