My Constant State of Frustration

Lately I feel like I'm in a constant state of frustration. Some of the frustrations are small things, and others... not so small. Now, compared to the people who have been forced out of their houses by hurricanes or floods or who have loved ones fighting overseas and they haven't seen them for months, these things might seem ridiculous. But I've always been blessed with a pretty good life and even the tough times haven't been so bad, so relative to my blessed life, these things are frustrating me right now.

My frustrations lately:

• The DirecTV receiver in our living room is continually rebooting and the signal is messed up on certain channels making them unwatchable at times (including HGTV and the Disney Channel, two of our house favorites).
• Our house is infested with fruit flies and drain/sewer flies.  For the past week I have been fighting to get rid of these pests by pouring gallons of boiling water down the drains (the way that they're getting in), keeping all trash out of the house (not easy with 2 kids around), and washing dishes immediately.  These measures help temporarily, but they keep coming back.  Supposedly a leak in the drain can cause this.  Sigh.
• Drawstrings on shorts and pants.  When you're trying to make your stomach look flatter, drawstrings don't help!  They bug me enough when they're on my workout pants, but they're even more annoying on my everyday clothes.  I especially hated them when I was pregnant.  You want to show off your round belly, then there's a drawstring just sticking out making your stomach look all not-smooth.  I know, I know... just don't buy clothes with drawstrings.  That's easier said than done, at least with the style of shorts and pants I like.
• This isn't happening as much recently as it was a month or so ago, but it seems like every time that I turn on the radio (FM or XM), there's a former American Idol contestant on there.  Seriously... enough already!  Yes, Chris Daughtry is different than the typical American Idol, but if you hear him 10 times a day (and you only spend 30 minutes listening to the radio), then you start to hate him.
• I wish I had voted in the local elections.  I knew that voting was going on, and probably could've figured out a way to make it to the polls, but I never took the time to educate myself on who was running, so it would have been pointless.
• My body still hasn't recovered from being pregnant.  My calf still isn't back to normal. My knees still hurt occasionally.  My back and hips hurt randomly too.  Because of my non-recovering body, I won't be able to compete in the triathlon that I was hoping to do next month because I still can't really run.
• Non-stop news coverage of every-freakin-single-move that Casey Anthony makes.  The news breaks-in during tv shows all of the time just to tell you that Casey is riding in a car or something ridiculous like that.  Seriously.  Enough!  Tell me when something actually happens or if there is something that the public can really do to help.  I feel horrible that the little girl is missing (and most likely dead because of her mother), but all of the media coverage of crazy people protesting in the grandparents' front yard isn't solving anything.
• Keith has been traveling a LOT for the past few months.  It's hard not having him here for more reasons than one.  We miss him.  Fortunately, this will be in the past very soon!
• Because of the construction next door, we're losing even more of our vegetation buffer. They're adding 4 new power poles, each requiring a 5 foot radius around them.  They're also cutting down all of the pine trees in the line of the power lines.
• Entering a Biggest Loser contest with boys seems like a losing battle.  I'm not in any way trying to take anything away from the boy's efforts.  They're working hard too, I'm sure. But it was just stupid to think that I had a chance.  Women are just different then men, and I feel like we have more obstacles in our everyday lives (especially as moms) that make the contest harder even beyond the physical differences.  Maybe Jill or Nikki or one of the other girls will prove me wrong (and I hope they do), but I feel like there are 3 men competing for the majority of the prize and 7 women (5 of them moms) competing for the remaining 20%.  I know, I know... every time that I start to think like this I tell myself "Shut up Keri!  Just think of it as having paid $50 just to kick your butt in gear to get back in shape!  That's cheaper than a bridesmaid's dress (my motivation the last time)."  But then the competitor in me says "That's a bunch of bull!"  I've been busting my butt (as I'm sure many of the other girls and guys have been), but I feel like the competition is making me try too hard.  I've already written about how I think I was starving myself, and now I'm thinking that I might be over doing the working out part of it.  Then there's the thing with having had 2 babies and my body just won't react to losing weight like it once did. And that's just frustrating.  It's SO frustrating to be watching every little thing that you eat and spending an average of 2 hours a day working out (while everything else in your house suffers because you're too busy or too tired to tend to it), only to gain weight when I get on the scale (or lose next-to-nothing).  Women have more body fat in general, so we're also more likely to gain weight from really working out hard because we have more muscle to gain.  I know I'm getting healthier, and that's good (don't get me wrong), but I'm always a competitor and it's frustrating to know that I'm competing for something that I feel like I have no chance of winning.  And that even if I do get close, I can have one bad "bloated" day at the final weigh-in, and that can ruin everything.  Boys don't have to worry about that. [BTW... In our contest, the thing about it being harder for girls was considered in the prize payout.  If a girl wins, she gets 100% of the prize money, and if a guy wins, he only gets 80% and the top girl gets the other 20%. There was really no fair way to apply a handicap (since there aren't any stats on how much harder it is for a woman), so this was really the fairest way to do it.]
• The final, and by far the biggest, frustration that I'm facing right now is that the addition to our house seems to still have no end in sight.  We started the process in January of 2007, and after months of designing the changes, finally signed a construction contract in October of 2007.  It's nearly a year later, and I don't think there's any way that we'll be done within a year of signing the contract (which originally stated that it would only take 6 months). So many things in our house are totally out of order because of the addition, and every day it makes me more and more crazy.  Neither of my kids really have their own room to sleep in.  Clothes are in different rooms than where they sleep.  Annabelle is sleeping in a playpen (at 2.5 years old) because Corgan is in her crib so that he isn't sleeping in our room where his crib is (but is currently filled with stuff that I'm waiting to use in the new rooms).  We need new sheets, but I don't want to buy any if we aren't going to be in this bed much longer.  Our dining room table is buried under piles of "projects" and paperwork as I wait for an office to put everything in.  The garage is filled with furniture and fixtures and other things so we are unable to park our cars in there and we continue to drag piles and piles of dirt into our house because we don't have concrete to park on and our yard is just a big mess of dirt, weeds, and construction debris.  Our children can't play outside because there's nowhere safe to play.  We can't start our landscaping because the house isn't done and the contractor won't give us an end date (and even if he did, I wouldn't believe it).  The bathroom and hall closet and stairs closet and Annabelle's closet need a "restart" cleaning (throw out stuff, reorganize stuff, blah, blah), but I feel like it would be a waste of time when we're just going to be moving soon (although "soon" keeps becoming "later").  We went from having 2.5 baths to only having 1 bathroom (because the other 2 have been under construction for months now).  All of this would be bearable, if there were only an end in sight.  But there isn't.  The addition has been in pretty much the same state for the past 2 months.  And no, it's not because of the storms.  Our contractor has been totally flaking on us (I could write a whole entry on that subject, but it would be too long and wouldn't meet the PG rating that my blog currently has.).  So, here I sit, next to my pile of papers and other junk all over my desk, waiting.  Waiting for my office.  Waiting for a master bathroom that doesn't have a training potty in it.  Waiting for our own bedroom again.  Waiting for rooms for my kids and their clothes and their toys.  Waiting for a playroom so that I can get all of these toys out of our living room and dining room.  Waiting for a place to park my car without fear of ants and snakes and dirt.  Waiting for a place to play with a ball or ride bikes outside with the kids.  Waiting to lock in a mortgage rate because there's no way that our house will be ready for an appraisal within 45 days. Waiting to see the rooms and house that I've been designing and decorating in my head and on paper for nearly 2 years now become a reality.  Just waiting.