The Other Bailey's Circus
Seriously
Monday, July 30, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Melancholy
Does that sound whiney? Well it is a little I suppose. To bad.
Here is my problem. I have a big family. Four kids outside of my body plus the one I am about to give birth to plus Owen and Me. Plus we are living in Owen's parents house with the two of them and his older brother who has pretty much lived here his whole life. I should be happy about having such a large, caring family. They constantly check on me to see if I am ok. They all cheered loudly when I came home from the doctor with news that my chance of death had been lowered from 70% to 5-25%. (depending on if I hemorrhage again.) I don't feel happy about it though. I feel empty. And like I am going to let them all down by dying anyways and then they will all just get so busy with trying to care for all the kids I just abandoned by dying that they will barely even really notice I am gone unless they are having a bad day and then they will say or think something to the effect of "Why the hell did she have to go and abandon us and make our lives so hard?"
Then there is the fact that oddly enough Owens parents are there for me more than my own flesh and blood is most of the time. Yes, I get that they are both retired and we LIVE IN THEIR HOUSE. But you know what? When Owen's mom worked they still Always made time for us. We never once were made to feel like we were an inconvenience if we stopped by and they weren't expecting us to. I don't even know how many times they cancelled plans over the years because we were here and they wanted every second of our time they could have. You know why I don't know how many times they did it? Cause they have never once admitted to doing it or said a word about it. I am sure it has happened though. There were times we would show up unannounced and they would both be dressed nicely on a Saturday when they would normally have been in their "grubbies" and said they had been home all day and yes of course we could stay for dinner. I am willing to bet that every time that happened, plans with someone else were cancelled.
Now I am guessing that if anyone read past my first paragraph that you are confused about why knowing this makes me feel empty. I should feel blessed to be a part of such a loving family. Why don't I feel blessed? WHY?
Because if Owen and I got a divorce tomorrow I wouldn't get to keep them. They aren't really mine. They are Owen's and they treat me like I am theirs because Owen is theirs and I am his. But I know who they would go with if our marriage ever ended and that would be the right thing for them to do!
But Jaclyn, don't you have two biological families to call your own? Your biological parents got divorced and remarried and now you have two families!
Yes and no.
Let me show you two pictures:
Do you see the similarity in this picture? No, right? That is because the similarity is what isn't there, not what is there.... well and they are both pictures from my younger siblings graduations from High School, but you know, whatever.
See both of these pictures are of the new family my biological parents created when our family fell apart. And I don't feel like I belong in either of them.
Now let me make one thing perfectly clear. Neither of my families have done anything or said anything to hint or blatantly state that I am a virtual non-member. NOT A THING. This is an issue that is all mine. In my own head.
Mostly.
See I had been thinking and feeling it, but Owen was the first one to say it out loud. Maybe that is cause he knows me and knew something was bothering me and when my families started being to busy to see me without penciling me in first, I think he put two and two together and figured out what was bothering me.... except that his pointing it out made it worse, like what I was feeling was real.
Did you know that my Mom and Dad only see us at church on Sundays and then every other Sunday we go to their house after church for lunch and usually dinner? Unless they have other plans. Then our coming over gets cancelled and sometimes we reschedule for the next week and sometimes we don't.
And did you know that I am never told my other family is going to be in SoCal until they are already here and to busy to see me? And if Owen or I suggest that we go out of our way to come and see them it never works out with their scheduled plan? Granted they have a tendency to make a beeline for the beach, spend the day there and then immediately head back to Utah..... but I am starting to feel more like penpals than actual family.
I understand that they have their own very busy, very full lives.
In the case of my Poppas new family they have only had me to think about for a few years and in that time they have never forgotten a kids birthday or a holiday. Not once. I also understand that Poppa works a job that makes it so he gets most of the information about the goings on of his family via the internet. He is often somewhere else in the world working alone in a little room that is frequently about the same amount of moving space of a small to medium walk in closet. I often wonder if he is lonely, and sometimes he posts things on Facebook that make me wonder if he ever regrets his line of work... (software type of stuff I believe.)
In the case of Mom's new family I have always been the black sheep. I wanted to do things my way whether my way was right or not and I wasn't going to sit there and let anyone tell me otherwise. It made me seem like a bad seed for a long time. (That is as much as I am gonna say about that for now as it is sort of a hot button topic in my family.) I can see where, from their perspective, many of the things Owen and I struggle through are our own bad choices and lack of planning. I don't bore them with the details of the inner workings of our lives. They have made it clear that doing so makes it sound like we are making excuses for our lives. (And I can see how from a "I worked hard and everything worked out in the long run, you must not be working as hard as I did/do" perspective it would seem like that is exactly what we are trying to do. I understand that Dad works upwards of 60 hours a week and is taking classes and is an elder in the church.... and Mom is often either sick or physically recovering from being sick or an injury aggravated by her Fibromyalgia and barely has the energy or physical ability to keep her own house running, let alone take on my large, boisterous family more than every once in a while.
But then I think about Owen's parents. They always have time for us. Always. They have opened up their home to us and do their best to sit back and let us run our own family even if they dont agree with how we are doing something.
And you know what? It makes me wonder.
It makes me wonder what I did that makes my family not want me, not want me to be an active part of their lives. Is it because I am overweight? Is it because I am a stay at home mom with no education or particularly marketable skills? (Ok, I have the skills, they are just underdeveloped at the moment. Technicality.) Is it something I said or did that they don't want to bring up because they are trying to spare my feelings or prevent me from blowing up and them and making a scene?
I don't have an answer and I doubt I ever will. Maybe I have the pregnancy blues.
Maybe I am just Melancholy.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Liam sings me a song first thing in the morning
Friday, May 25, 2012
In the last month
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
219 days

(This picture has very little to do with anything. I just find Moon Jellies to be calming and enjoyable to watch.)
Apparently that is how long it has been since I posted last. I am not going to attempt to catch you up. It would be impossible and there are things that happened that I don't really want to talk about.
Instead I will share a few things with the few of you that follow along on my crazy life journey so that you will better understand why my whole life kinda seems to have changed since last I typed.
My whole life has changed.
Owen is no longer in the Army. Neither of us has a job. We are living with his parents with our children trying to get our heads on straight.
We are having another baby.My Estimated Due Date is August 1st. I will probably have the baby the week before that as I have scheduled c-sections. Owen is officially one in a million.... That is how rare it is for a vasectomy to heal itself. I am scared, but I am trying not to let my fear swallow me whole. I have to believe that God has a plan for us as a family.
I know the likely gender of the baby. I am not sharing that information cause it is not a sure thing. I blame that on the fact that the baby never stopped moving during the ultrasound cause I had about a half a gallon of iced tea before the appointment. My bad.
I know the two possible names for the baby. One boy name, one girl name. You can't know either of them until I give birth and know the gender of the baby for sure. Sorry if you don't like that answer.
I have some of the stuff for my contest winners, but I have to dig it out of storage as I accidentally packed it. I still have to make the rest. Sorry my Life Crisis messed up my ability to keep my word and be reliable.
Now that my life is no longer ass end up I will be blogging regularly again. I can't guarantee award winning stories, but I will do my best to at least not bore the world to tears.
If you have stuck with me and patiently waited for me to return, thank you from the very bottom, middle, and top of my heart.
Monday, September 12, 2011
And the Winners are:
Here is the problem. I put the names in a hat. I asked Aeddon to pull three. He pulled three right away, not one at a time. However I figured that they were still the first three pulled. I also figured we are all adults and can decide amongst ourselves who gets what prize.
I personally am leaning towards Dianne getting the Grand Prize since she has a little one on the way... and letting Michelle and Jen decide which of the other two prizes they are most interested in.
Ladies do you have any preference?
Monday, August 29, 2011
250 blog posts.
The Runner up will win this hat:
It is a beautiful pink wool Cloche style hat. It is adult sized, although it is fitted on an adult head and would probably fit a teen as well. The flower is detachable.
They will also win a scarf like this one (that I have yet to make as scarves really need to be made in a length that fits their owner) out of the same yarn as the hat.
The first prize winner will receive a hat and fingerless gloves all made out of my own hand dyed yarn, also wool. They will be able to choose between a hat like the one above and this one (which is made out of the exact same yarn I will be using for this prize)
The fingerless gloves will be just like these:
or like these if you opt to have me make this set for a child:
(but the same yarn as shown for this prize.)
The grand prize winner will be able to pick their yarn (up to $30 worth), color and up to three hand made crocheted accessories. They will be able to decided what size they are as well. Love my work, but would rather be sure that your 3 young cousins that live in Fargo have warm hats? Sure I can make them the hats! Have a friend or family member who is going through Chemo? I would love you to use your grand prize winning to have me make them three hats of different styles! Having a baby and want me to make a pair of (small) longies, a sweater and a hat? Sure! This one is up to you. (within reason. I cant afford to make you three Quivit accessories. That stuff is CRAZY EXPENSIVE!)
All winners will have their prizes shipped between September 15th and October 15th. Want extra entries? Share this post on your facebook page, blog or twitter and for each one (one each per person) you will get an entry. If your friend comes and enters and tells me that you sent them I will give you an extra entry for that as well! That is 5 ways to enter!
Good Luck!
So that happened...
My phone disappeared while we were in California so I have been waiting to have the money to replace it and get our phones turned back on.
The boys are in school.
Alexander is a second grader and is doing amazingly. He is taking third grade math cause he was to smart for second grade math. He got a 116% on his first spelling test.
Aeddon is officially a kindergartener. He is in afternoon kindergarten and he loves it, but is unsure about his teacher. She is a bit overwhelmed cause she has 26 kids and so she never says please or thank you and that really upsets him. I like her. I think she will be a great teacher for him.
Alexander has started cub scouts. He is in Wolf Den 12 Pack 264. Owen and I are his den leaders. It is a fun adventure! Saturday we did a "spike it" even where we all earned the Volleyball belt loop.
My "seventh year" in the Harry Potter Knit Crochet House cup is about to start on September first. I am crazy excited. I plan to make as many projects as humanly possible this term. I really want to make gifts for all those closest to me. I also want to make Cindy's commissioned peices she paid me to make her a year ago now! Her stuff will actually be my first priority come September!
Ok so now that we are all caught up to the present I wanted to share something with you all. This post, the one you are reading right now is my 250th blog post. To celebrate this milestone I am going to have a contest. Post 251 will be the contest post with all the details.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
In which I explain myself...
You ready to do a very VERY fast catch up?
The week after my last post I turned 29. We also got our own house on post.
Then it was Easter, Which this year fell on Mikaela's birthday! We worked very hard to separate the two activities and make it fun for her.

She turned 4.
The next weekend we celebrated Liam's 2nd birthday.

Then it was May.
In May Alexanders class did a special mothers day tea and poetry reading. The kids wrote the poetry! They also made us moms these cute little magnetic flowers!

Have I mentioned that Alexander has entered the "I dont like to have my picture taken and if you are going to insist on pointing that thing at me I am going to make a yucky face" stage of his life. Please dear God let him outgrow this phase quickly! I love taking his picture!
On the 10th Alexander went on his first real school field trip. He begged me to go... so I did. The downside was that it was at a nature center and most of the trip was a hike around looking at different environments and it rained/hailed the whole time. Thank goodness for warm handknits. I was the only adult that wasnt cold!

That is not his whole class. This is just the small group we hiked around with!
School got out for the summer on May 23rd. My sister also turned 17 that day.... but I digress. His teacher hosted a breakfast for the whole class and their families. Owen's chain of command actually let him have the morning to come too!
On the 28th I got to go to Denver and meet some of the locals from the HPKCHC. This was my second house cup meet up and it was fun! It was just the 4 of us and I really feel like we all got to know each other!

Next thing we knew it was June.
On the 4th we went to a birthday party up in Denver. I met Ila and her family in El Paso and now they live here too! So she invited us to her son's party and we went! I ended up as the unofficial photographer of the event (I offered.) and took a ton of pictures.

It has finally warmed up here and my body is not tolerating the heat in the thinner air. This means that we have spent a lot of time indoors this summer... which is the total opposite of what I wanted... but it is what it is.
The good thing about lots of time inside is moments like this:

On the 11th I got to go to the Estes Park Wool Market. It was amazing. I wish I had had some money to spend... Maybe next year!

For the record I look like crap in that picture! I think I had the worst posture in that picture ever!
Owen decided he wanted to go to the zoo this year for his fathers day activity. We have a zoo membership so it was free...

All of these pictures were taken on a tree at the zoo.



I had the shakes bad that day so none of those is perfectly in focus... but I have a feeling that when I get to California my MIL will still want to copy and frame those for her house!
And that is pretty much it! I have also been crafting a lot lately and will post a big update of that soon!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Garden of the Gods
We had to go to the Visitor's Center to get permits to be allowed on the rocks, so while we were there I took some pictures from the balcony of the park.

This rock is called Kissing Camels.

Can you see it? If not, don't feel bad. It took me a while to see it too.
Once we had our permits we went into the park, parked our van and had a little picnic. When we were done eating we headed for the rocks.

The kids and Owen had a great time climbing around on the rock formations. I didn't climb much cause by the time I took pictures they were moving on to the next place. Such is the life of the family photographer.


After climbing around on the rocks we started our hike. We walked from Turn off 11 to the Trading Post in the park. Along the way we walked through and around some beautiful scenery.



A few times Liam decided he was done walking and would just sit down or lay down in the middle of the path.


For the most part though the kids did great and had a lot of fun! There are more pictures that I can reasonably share on here, but if you want you can click through to the set from the day and check out the rest of the pictures of our adventure! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaclynbailey/sets/72157626470058360/with/5607289274/

