This blog is almost like my time capsule....I want to look back and remember it all. The good times and even the hard times. I believe, sometimes you need that to keep your grounded. So this post is very long and very honest. I'm also having major cabin fever. Mother nature is not being kind to us these days. Our snow blower broke so I just spent over an hour outside shoveling our long driveway and clearing off the car so Mike could help move my sister back with my mom. (We are going to miss Auntie so much!!) It was also -18 with the windchill. I'm exhausted and FREEZING!! But Kensington is napping and Kamryn and Logan are playing quietly so I found a little time to write.

2014-2015 has been crazy. Mike started a new job. A change we had been anticipating for awhile. We knew it would be hard financially so we prepared ourselves as best we could. We also knew the financial struggle was only going to be temporary and in the end the change would be worth it. "The end" being at least 5 years from now when he finishes his apprenticeship. When we got pregnant with Kensington we knew he would be changing jobs and his pay would be cut by a lot but also knew we didn't want our kids to be too far apart in age. Adding another baby into our family was a decision we struggled with. But we left it up to God and within a few months I was pregnant. We knew this was going to add some stress but the best part about this career change, Mike was going to have much better hours! As far as we knew Mike would be working 6-2 or 7-3 and that meant much more time as a family! I was all for that! Mike had been working 1-9pm for 7 years....I was more than ready to have him home to help with dinner, bath and bedtime. He also had been working Saturdays for the past 7 years and I was ready for that to be over too. We were both so excited! He left Verizon with a smile on his face and we couldn't wait for him to be in a better job with much better hours. Less pay, for now, but he'd have much more time to spend with us!! We couldn't wait! 

Well, imagine my surprise when Mike got his job assignment and they told him he would be working 3-11pm. I think I almost cried. I was beyond pissed. Now he leaves at 1pm and doesn't get home until well after midnight! At Verizon he left at 12:30 and was home by 10, the latest! We always had a little family time in the morning, time to run some errands and I always had alone time with Mike when he got home from work. Now that Mike gets home so late I'm usually asleep. It takes him a few hours to wind down after a busy day so he doesn't get to sleep until really late and therefore he sleeps in. I get anywhere between 2-3 hours a day with Mike in the morning, with our kids interrupting us approximately 6,750 times. But 3 days a week I am driving Kamryn to and from school and on Mondays we don't see Mike at all. He's gone from 4:30am until midnight for both school and work. On top of that, to make up for the lack of pay, he's being doing a lot of side work so he's gone most weekends too. 

I miss my husband. I miss our old life. I miss being able to see him every night before I go to sleep. I miss him getting up earlier in the morning and spending time with me and the kids. I miss just being a real family and spending that time together. Most days it's hard and unfortunately very very lonely. 

In the midst of this huge change, that turned out to be a lot harder than we initially anticipated, we had Kensington. Let's be honest, I was psychotic when I was pregnant and even worse after she was born. That did not help the stress of the situation, AT ALL. Now, anyone that has had a baby knows a pregnancy and a newborn baby takes a lot out of you. You are hormonal, sleep deprived and super emotional. Not good! I was a mess in the weeks following Kensie's birth. I felt great physically...people told me I looked great...but inside I was all out of sorts. I was such a mess that I changed my daughters name. (I know you're probably done hearing about this, I apologize and promise this is the last time I'll mention it) Kensie is over 3 months old and I'd like to think I'm back to normal. Whatever normal is. I'd like to think my brain now functions like a normal persons and I'd like to think my emotions are back in check. To put it blankly...I shouldn't of changed her name. But that's been and done and there's absolutely no going back. I tell Mike I now look back on it as a momentary lapse of judgement. Now she's forever Kensington. I do love her name so it could be a lot worse, I guess. We are done having babies, life has given me a swift dose of reality and I now know I'm done, but IF we were to ever get a surprise and it's a girl, she's going to be Eliot. That's it! That's all! {And quite frankly, I don't give a shit what anyone thinks about it!!}

Moving on....

Needless to say it's been an emotional roller coaster this past year. I've hit the point where everything seems to be hitting me at once. It'll get better, that I know. I'm sure someday I'm going to look back on these days and wonder what the hell we were thinking and how we did it. Maybe we'll even laugh. Oh, but my sweet Kensington...I wouldn't take back having her at this time for anything in the world! She is such a joy and that sweet baby keeps me going! Along with her brother and sister of course! I have a lot to be thankful for and I try to remind myself of that everyday. It's not always easy, I'll be honest, but I try. I hold a lot in. Actually, I pretty much hold it all in, even to those I'm closest to. It's hard when you don't have anyone you feel understands what you're going through. I complain just like anyone else but I never really let on to how much something is bothering me. I have become a pro at putting a smile on and not letting anyone know what's really going on and even here that's only a fraction of the crap going on in my life right now. It's not all that great right now but as they say, we can only go up from here.....

So, I just blurted it out in a blog post. This seems to be the only place lately that I allow myself to be venerable. Read it, take it for whats its worth, but either way it feels good to type it all out. For whatever reason it just makes me feel better.