What kind of a food name is Goulash?

Tuesday, January 19th 2016

I made Goulash on Monday. I am trying to plan meals better and I hate doing the same thing week to week. I have given up on my kids trying to eat all of it so I hit and miss or have alternate ideas for them on these kinds of nights but they generally only like knock off spaghettios for soup.

I think the word itself is completely unappeasing...I don't think that is a word but I can't think of a better description. I will tell you that it was very good and simple to make. I did do a search and according to the www.kitchenproject.com I found the History of Goulash. Basically it is a meat dish with vegetables of choices thrown in with paprika. And that is exactly what I made.

Getting my children to eat has always been difficult but I do have them eating mostly chicken dishes such as chicken curry and fajita chicken. I am trying to branch them out but I have to be careful. I did finally get them to eat roast and a hobo steak which is basically a hamburger wrapped in foil and baked. Since they are homeschooled I want to feed them better meals and also more wholesome and not packaged meals (although we do love our mac n cheese in a box!)

I generally try to make things but I am not sure how to get them to eat things such as goulash. The eldest loves meat, potatoes, and ketchup but not in the same dish heaven forbid. The youngest is more game to try things and will eat the carrots out of stews along with meats unless it is hamburger. She does not care for hamburgers in general but I can get her to eat a bit with lots of ketchup.

I never can seem to get them to eat and like the same meal. One loves taco night, the other hates it. One likes hamburger night, the other wants a hotdog. And then when I fix hotdogs in the summer, the one that likes hamburgers is all offended. I mean really. So I have learned to settle with 3 out of 4 in the family. Hubby loves it all as long as it is gluten free so he is easy to please!

Out of Control

This week feels like I am spiraling out of control. The closer I get to the next change in my work life the more panicked I become. I know I can be a good manager and want the opportunity but I am terrified and feel like an imposter to take it on.

Why do I feel like this? Why am I still struggling? Why am I so anxious and pissed off at the world...at God...at myself? I want to right this ship but not sure how or if I even care to right it anymore.

My sanity is being pushed, my faith is being pushed, my sense of being is being pushed. I woke up angry in the middle of the night because of the volleyball season. I NEVER do that. I was one to get angry but then let it go and move on and anymore I can't seem to move on and I don't know why. Everything I do it seems to point me back to that. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to see anything about it, I don't want to hear about it yet it keeps coming up like bad food. 

This week has been hectic as usual but Wed I took my car in for a recall repair and got off the interstate and followed the rules of the road but someone honked at me. Normally I am like whatever but this day I flipped them off. So they chased me and rode my butt to the dealership. I braked hard and stopped short of the entrance to leave this woman's butt hanging out as she turned into the dealership to follow me. Maybe she thought I wanted to fight and was pulling over??? I had not thought about that actually that she thought I wanted to confront her. Instead I sat there watching her and she decided to get out of the car! As soon as she was fully out, I drove off to the garage bay to, what I had planned was to dive into the safety of the garage...only to realize they were not open yet. Luckily my husband was behind her and was annoyed she had stopped in the way and went around her so she took off. I was a bit worked up for awhile after that.

Today, I had drank my morning coffee and had my secondary constitutional after, only to stand up and feel my phone slide out of my pocket of my track pants and into the toilet with said constitutional. I quickly grabbed it before the water had time to do any damage. I washed the cover thoroughly and then clorox wiped the phone itself and let it dry to make sure it have any damage. 

Then I took my 17 year old to take her drivers permit test....for the 8th or 9th time...and she literally took 5 minutes to take the test. I understand the kid has test anxiety but you got to take longer than 5 minutes to take a 25 question test that only allows like 2 or 3 missed answers. 

The more I thought about it the madder I got. I ended up chewing her out which made her feel worse and me like a low life but I was able to explain that she needed to take longer than 5 minutes next time. 

Then I had an old peer reach out to me about a job opening. I am a bit bitter as this person NEVER said anything to me much after my layoff but then suddenly wanted to talk. I think on any other week I would have been fine but today I was already worked up and was just not into it. 

I called a peer to talk to her and I had told her about my car drama the day before and she very gently scolded me. She had me on speaker phone and my language was awful and she has a one year old that is picking up words and her husband heard us and asked if that was me and was I alright...as this was very out of character for me. I really appreciate her doing that as I needed that reality check. I was also a tad embarrassed about my mouth which has gotten bad and I need to control it. There is no excuse. 

I am also avoiding another friend...for no real good reason except she has done it to me, although not likely as intentional as I am doing, but because she just shuts down but then again that is what has happened to me. I have shut down emotions and she triggers too many and I see her and I get mad about volleyball so I am just avoiding her. It hurts as that is not my nature but neither is waking up in the middle of the night spitting mad...falling asleep crying quietly to myself...feeling depressed and despair over it...and then finding I was taken off the FB admin rights on the page three weeks ago...I don't care but the timing wasn't good as I decided to stop following the Falcon web pages and several of the parents as the only reason we were friends was because of volleyball but they screwed me over so I no longer have any loyalty to them so I unfollowed them and became almost euphoric with that step. I also missed my pills yesterday and I almost feel like that was not good for me after taking them again...not the missing them. 

I feel off kilter, out of balance, out of touch, out of control, lost, angry, alone, withdrawn, and desperately needing someone to talk to but refusing to reach out.

Then I had a call with a peer whom I normally enjoy talking to today and he wanted to talk to me about a topic that is very touchy with many. I listened to him but I don't want to be persuaded as I feel I am slowly in the minority with my thinking and will likely be persecuted before my life cycle runs its course the way things are going. I hope not as that is not a world I want my kids living in but I can't control that but I can influence their thinking by giving them facts to make their own decisions for. 

I feel like I am a half cocked gun ready to go off with the slightest bump and my safety is broken. I don't want that to occur as my friend said too many people are dangerous and my life and career is not worth ruining or shortening because of poor decisions. 

I am ready for this week to be over so I decided to take off work on Friday and just spend time with the family and get work done around the house and relax. I hope it resets my system.  

Life After Cancer

 Life moves on...whether you do or not. 2022 was extremely rough. I LOVE to read and I could not focus for longer than 15 minutes. I forced myself to read an entire book in the summer but my stress of not confiding in my friend my frustrations and isolating and suffering in silence was more than I could handle.

I talked to my doctor and got put on a low dose of Zoloft so I could function. I ended up speaking more to my friend but I still struggled through the year. We started the season and child 2 was a junior so she was told she wouldn't get to play much. She got played hardly at all so the season sucked...even when the team was winning by a lot or losing by a lot...she wasn't played and it hurt for both of us. She cried more than ever and I stayed so angry...and I was also was still angry from the cancer and the ups and down. 

Then work became increasingly more stressful to the point of massive layoffs in the spring of 2023 that gave me PTSD from being laid off myself in 2019. Work demands from dealing with 5 different asian countries plus the US and EMEA had me at my wits end. 

The layoffs affected several great people and close friends. I had gotten past my cancer woes by switching my care to the local cancer center instead of the local hospital and they explained my issues were just post surgical changes and were nothing to worry about. I am finally seeing the oncologist every 4 months vs every 3. I just had a follow up mammogram during the layoffs so that added to the stress but I got good news and no signs of cancer so I go back in another 6 months and then if that goes well I can move out to a year so I am hopeful that stays on track.

I have gained weight (I got down to 130 lbs) with the up and down stress and Zoloft. I am at 141 lbs now and that isn't horrible but I don't want to gain all of my weight I lost back so that adds to my stress so I have been watching my food intake and not stuff myself from stress which helps. 

Then to add to all of this stress I found out that due to parent drama several girls decided to not come back to play volleyball and go play for a rival team which caused us to not have enough kids. This shit has been brewing for a while. This parent screwed me over during a club year. Honestly, the coach also let it happen because she wanted her daughter to not be stuck on that team so we got waived down and screwed. This parent caused enough drama that he was banned from coming back which affected his daughter and his behavior led the refs coming up with a bad name for him. Now this year he tried to come back and then when told no he started shit and now we don't have enough kids to have an 18 or a 16 girls team. So my daughter get screwed her senior year. It affected the coaches daughter and another younger player. But turns out the coaches daughter can go play for a school that is not too far from them and she can coach part time so she gets to finish out her senior year. The younger girl, I found out tonight is ALSO going to go play for this school so yet again we get screwed. My friend wanted us to come watch games and spend time with them and #2 and I thought we would support them but if the other gets to play I am not sure I have the ability to attend games. I am still so angry that I can't see straight and I really hate people. 

I am tired of driving friendships and getting nothing back. I am tired of an organization that we got 2 good years out of 7 in and gave heart and soul to and have nothing but pain and angst to show for it. 

I have about decided that I just don't care anymore and it pains me because I used to care and do things for people without much thought to it because it made me feel good but now I just feel like a whore and invisible so why bother anymore. I am bitter. 

I feel like I pour my heart out and then I get ignored so I can't take that anymore so pushing people away is the only thing I know so I will likely only speak when spoken to and put my energy into my work and family and all others can kiss my ass.