*S*I*G*H*

That title....that's me taking a great big sigh.  It's been one of THOSE days.  Seriously.  I haven't had use of my car since this wonderful drizzly weather started (Joanne and Reyna, your hats are ready to go in the mail and will be sent out as soon as I can make it to the post office during business hours!  I'm so sorry!).  With the wonderful, hurricane-force winds that we've had today, the kids and I have been trapped indoors.  I did manage to make it to the gym for a workout, but it took a bit of finagling.  That wasn't the worst part of my day though....I'll give a quick synopsis:

Gotta go back in time a bit....my husband has been really cranky and difficult to live with lately.  Work is stressing him and he feels really put-out with all that he has to do for other people.  So he comes home and resents being asked to help or being obligated to help with things.  I understand that he's feeling strained and being the sole-provider for our family is a major stress.  But it's just not possible to get the kids to leave him be when he comes home.  He's been great about letting me sleep in on the weekends, which I really appreciate.  The last few weekends, his mom has been watching the kids for a couple of hours so we can spend some time together.  This last Sunday, my husband looked at me and said, "you can take the kids to my mom's by yourself, right?"  He decided he wanted a nap and assumed that I would be spending the time without them grocery shopping in peace.  I have this horrible flaw...I sometimes say things that I shouldn't or fail to word things properly and end up causing upset with what I do say.  While dropping the kids off, a whole lot of my "stresses" with my husband came out as I was explaining why he needed to get in to see the therapist.  In the process of explaining, I apparently upset my mother-in-law (I said something about my husband holding onto hurt from being abused by his step-father, who used to hit him).  His mom thought that this equated to "step-dad used to beat him and you were a horrible mom for letting that happen".  Ah, yes...have to love the overly-dramatic interpretations.  So....I spent the day arguing with my husband, who is very upset with me for saying anything at all, blames the entire thing on me (which I am mostly responsible for since I know his mom is overly-sensitive and prone to mis-interpretation).  I took my frustration and upset over the incident and put them to good use....I pushed really hard on the elliptical!  An hour and 5 minutes on that thing today!  I kept my heart rate up in the 90% range for nearly the entire workout.  Wow, did that feel good!  We ended our day with an appointment with our marriage counselor, who will now become my husband's therapist for the next few months as he works through some of his unresolved issues.  It actually turned into a really productive day for us!  We walked away from our appointment with three follow-up appointments for my husband: one for him to take an MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory), an appointment with a psychiatrist, who can help figure out which anti-anxiety medication might help him the most, and another appointment for a one-on-one session with the therapist.  Hopefully all of this will equate to him working on being a much happier, healthier person so we can work on having a much happier, healthier family.  It's so hard on the kids when we argue and although we try our hardest not to argue in front of them, they always seem to sense the extra tension.

Anyway, Day 22 of the challenge!  Reyna, I'm so impressed that you were even able to stand after doing that 13-mile run, let alone do Kempo!  Now that the forecast is saying that snow is becoming a possibility, I think the gym is going to be our refuge!  Fine with me since I've been loving the elliptical lately.  It's awesome to have a piece of gym equipment that is fun to use and tells you that you're burning nearly 1000 calories in an hour!  Love that!

One last note, just because I'm really excited about this....About a year ago, I finally convinced my husband to let us adopt a kitten.  She was adorable and I loved having her!  But....I was having some allergy issues (hives) that I assumed were because of the kitten.  So we gave the kitten away.  Well, turned out the hives popped up every time I got stressed and were related to the anti-depressant medication I was on at the time.  Ever since giving the cat away, my husband has been dead-set against getting another pet.  Hehe....until his little girl started asking him!  Apparently, the last couple of nights, Lily has asked her daddy if he'd like a kitty or a puppy.  Let me make it clear that this has not been due to coaching from mommy.  I occasionally take the kids to look at the pets in the mall's pet store, but I would never get a pet from there.  I figure if Lily brings it up again for the next couple of nights, her daddy just might end up caving and telling her she can get a big kitty (no kittens in our home!).  Yay!  I miss having pets!