Pity Party Pending......

Warning: Pity Party Ahead

I am emotionally, mentally, physically exhausted.

Or as Frank, a darling former student of VodkaMom, one of my favorite blog-pals, would say it, "I'm disausted." (And I'm not shamelessly linking to her blog because I still hope to win the scooter; the contest is over, and I didn't win. That puts VodkaMom on the same level with Pioneer Woman, bloggers whose contests I have NOT won.)

If "disausted" is a combination of disgusted and exhausted, consider it my new favorite word.

I'm drained from the routine of taking care of my mother-in-law, and please believe me when I say I'm not complaining. We don't even have to take care of her EVERY need, since she has home health care and physical therapists coming in several times a week, and sometimes her own DAUGHTER can even manage to stop by and help. It's just tiring. And while I posted just a couple of weeks ago (or it may have been only days), we can adapt to new routines. What we can't do right now is either plan things too far in advance OR be spontaneous. We thought we might take a Thanksgiving trip in the RV again this year, but we may be looking at months of helping Hubby's mother. Wah wah. Imagine how I would be whining if I were the one who couldn't even get up to pee. I promise that I don't let her see how tired it makes me, and I don't complain. Not even to Hubby. Even when I told him I have a bike ride this Sunday, and before I could suggest that maybe he could take care of his own mother himself, he said, "No problem, we'll just go at 5:00." Great. That means getting up at 4:30.

My energy at school is being completely depleted. I think it will get better, especially once our students settle into their crappy attendance habits. (Pardon the cynicism....it is a regular guest at my pity parties.) We have increased our class size this year from 15 students to 20, and it makes a huge difference. I realize some of you teachers out there regularly deal with more than 30 students in a class, so please don't throw things at me. My students use a computer curriculum and move at their own pace (or a snail's pace, as they see fit), so I am constantly hopping from one computer to another.

I worried sick about my child, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. And it has nothing to do with the hurricane either. I was secretly hoping that her town would be evacuated and she would come home, then the hurricane would wipe out her entire condo complex so she could start over. That might have been her only chance to get out of this mess. She bought her condo right before the economy went to hell, and she's stuck there now. Oh, and the Navy decided they didn't need her services anymore, so she's also out of a job. She gets a housing allowance through the G.I. bill as long as she's a full-time student, but it's hard to get a full-time job to pay the REST of the bills when she has to be a full-time student. And did I mention she doesn't want to talk about it?

My mother-in-law diagnosed the CRIPPLING pain I've had in my right foot for MONTHS now. I thought it was a stress fracture or arthritis. Frogger Blogger (also known as Nurse Jane) said it could possibly be gout, although that usually affects the big toe, and this pain is in my little toe. Mother-in-law mentioned the possibility of it being a corn, and darn if she wasn't right. Why didn't I think of that? At least it's something I can treat, but it's down at the base of my toe, right between the little toe and the next one, and it's taking its sweet time getting better. Now that I've grossed you out talking about the corn between my toes, you may return to your regularly scheduled lives.

I want to burst into tears and cry for about three hours. Then I want to crawl into a hole and sleep for about three years.

I hope next time we talk I'm on the upswing. Because if I get any lower, I'm afraid I'll start liking it down here.