In a funk

For the past month or so, I have just been in a funk. I am not sure of any real reason, but I just feel blah. Nothing is really seeming to make me happy and I just stay annoyed. The first place I can usually tell a change in my mood is with food and it is pretty obvious. I was doing so well with eating right and running in March. While I am still running, the eating is not great. I can make it work Monday through Thursday, but Friday through Saturday has been awful. Fried food, pizza, and sweets just call my name. I fully understand I am using bad food to comfort myself and as usual, its not working.

My next blah feeling is with our house, or more specifically my neighborhood. I am so frustrated that it is being overtaken with rentals and foreclosures. The house next to us in on its 3rd set of renters since we've lived there. The newest family now has smokers that come over and it blows into our backyard, making sitting on the porch hazardous to our health. They are also unaware of how thin the walls are in subdivisions and they play their music so loud. And they come in all hours of the night blaring music and slamming doors. So, they are not too high on our happy list. We also are annoyed the house across the street was foreclosed on and now it is being sold for dirt cheap. The property values are declining so it makes our idea of only being in our house for 5 years only a dream. We cannot afford to sell our house and take a big hit, so we are stuck in a neighborhood filled with people who don't care about their homes and it shows in how unkept the houses are. So, we are now looking at least 2-3 more years minimum before we can hope to move. Until then, we are wanting to do some work to the inside and porch so hopefully when the time comes, we can at least break even. But, our funds are pretty limited so trying to do the things we want to do is tough.

I'm also in a photography funk right now. I thought I was making progress with it until the spring and I started doing more outside. I really feel like I have started all over again because my exposure is all over the place. I realize the lighting is different, but I thought I had a good handle on exposure until now. I'm also in a rut with finding new pictures to take. I love taking pictures of Aubrey, but there are only so many pictures of her on her bike or building block towers that are interesting. So, I find myself taking less pictures of her and that makes me sad. Even when I tried to do Easter pictures over the weekend, they were a big fat fail. Not only was she not cooperative, I just didn't get great pictures to work with. I took over 150 pictures and only 3 were slightly appealing to me and that is sad. I am so hard on myself with pictures because I see all of the technical problems with them so it is hard for me to accept any praise for them. I will admit, the pictures today are better than even a year ago, but not where I want to be and that frustrates me. I keep comparing my pictures to others and beating myself up because they aren't as good and that just keeps me in the funk.

I stay frustrated with Aubrey's daycare and I have no solutions for it, which makes me feel hopeless. The director and assistance director are not helpful and at times appear completely incompetent to run a day care. The teachers are rude and can't follow directions. Aubrey continues to come home nasty with food and wearing diapers that aren't hers. They bounce the kids from room to room because they don't have enough 2-year olds to fill the classrooms and so we never know which classroom or which teacher we will see at the end of the day. They don't communicate with us about anything and we are pretty sure they have given up on potty training her. The kids in Aubrey's class are just mean, including one little girl I'd love to spank just about everyday. She bit Aubrey on the arm hard enough to leave a nasty bruise because Aubrey wouldn't give up a bike. If this little girl wants something you have, she has no problems hitting, biting, or other mean gesture of expressing her dislike of you. And, it is well documented about her bad behaviors but yet she is still in the center. None of the teachers even like her (overheard that straight from a staff) and it doesn't appear the other kids like her too much. But, like I said, we don't really have any other options for daycares at this point that works into our schedules and funds. So, we just keep dealing with the daily crap and can't wait for the time I can stay home and not have to deal with it.

Wow, I didn't realize this would become a mini novel when I sat down to type. I just needed a good venting session so I think I got it all out. Hopefully, I can find something to end the funk soon because this feeling blah is getting really old.