Drinking it in
This may come as a huge shock, but I am not exactly a fan of winter. I know I hide it really well, but it’s true. I don’t like to be cold, I don’t like snow, the endless muddy trail of bootprints in the house makes me want to cry. And as much as I hate to go out in it, being trapped in the house is hardly better. One should never have to go too many days without the feel of sunlight on one’s face. (One=me, and anyone else who has a bit of seasonal affective stuff going on.)
February is often my most difficult month. Winter has been dragging on long enough that I am DONE with it, even if it isn’t done with me. Spring is still far off in the distance. I’m tired and restless and searching for something I can’t seem to find.
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Come right in, Mr. Murphy
Hey, it’s 6:11 AM. Guess why I’m up? No, really, go on! Guess!
Well, it snowed, so there’s a 2-hour school delay.
So, naturally, the children got up at 5:45 to watch television. FIVE. FREAKING. FORTY. FIVE.
Those of you who know what I’m up to today can stop laughing ANY TIME NOW.
*#%*#$!
(P.S. TRALALALALAAAAAAAAAA!)
Is this part of acceptance?
If one spends the entire day trying to clean up several years of accumulated clutter in one’s house, one will find oneself reaching a calm place where the idea of bagging it all up and throwing it away seems like a brilliant plan.
P.S. This might be the result of being high on cookie fumes. Further research may be warranted.
Carpe cookie
Today–being my last full day to accomplish the Herculean set of housecleaning tasks I have set for myself before Rejoining The Working Folk–I found myself watching a friend’s 5-year-old daughter for an hour. I was itching to get on with my to-do list and just didn’t think she’d be amenable to tackling the pile of crap on my nightstand, ya know? So we moved further down the list to “make cookies for the very nice people who decided to give me a job.”
I have an unnatural relationship with cookies. I mean, yes… it’s 2005 and I am a grown woman with absolutely no use for the “barefoot and pregnant” stereotype. But what can I say? I like cookies. And when I bake these cookies for people, they like me back. Win-win. Plus? It’s a lovely diversion and makes the house smell yummy. And did I mention that at the end, there are cookies? Because there are.
Did I also mention I’m a wee bit tightly wound today? I’m sure you didn’t notice. (SHUT. UP.)
Anyway, my small friend and I commenced baking the world’s greatest chocolate chip cookies. She was an excellent scooper and pourer and chocolate chip tester. Thank goodness I had her here to help me out. You can’t make cookies with untested chocolate chips and if I eat anything in my current state, it won’t be pretty. So. We baked!
Well, WE baked for a while. Then her mom came to get her, and I’m still baking, because this recipe yields about a thousand cookies. I will probably still be rotating my cookie sheets in and out of the oven at midnight tonight, but it will be worth it. Cookies may not cure everything, but they’re pretty good at making the discerning palate just not care about anything else.
And with warm cookies in the kitchen, everything else should be fine.
What, you don’t think so? Shut up and have a cookie.
Earworm
Whatever tomorrow brings,
I’ll be there with open arms and open eyes, yeah.
Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there… I’ll be there.
(Seemed all karmic and meaningful the first gazillion times it played its way through my brain. Probably still is, but the meaning started to blur around replay number gazillion and one….)
Careful what you wish for
I’ve changed a lot in my years on this planet. The woman I am today is different than the woman I was twenty or ten or even five years ago. People grow; priorities shift, we (hopefully!) mature into finding the things that really matter to us. Some things, of course, stay more or less the same.
I still love chocolate; always have, always will.
I still love singing, being outdoors, making people laugh; all constants from my earliest days.
And I am still just about impossible to please.
It’s not so much that I am never happy as that it is very difficult for me to relax into happiness for any length of time. I am suspicious of it. I mistrust anything that smacks of contentment. Pockets of happiness, sure! There are always pieces of joy to be grabbed here and there in even the most challenging of situations, I find. But overall complacency; it’s not for me.
Needless to say, my friends and family are so lucky to have me!
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Stress antidote
There’s only one thing that will help me unwind after a rough day, and today I did it a whole new way. It started with a special delivery to the house; my pulse quickened immediately. As soon as I was able to shoo the children over to their father’s for dinner I was on that package, grinning ear to ear. Before I knew it I was gripping with both hands and working up a good sweat, murmuring my wonderment and appreciation as things progressed. Sure, I had a take a break to welcome the kids back and get them to bed, but then I picked up right where I left off. Afterwards I was spent; exhausted but satisfied.
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Life is hard, and so am I
I deleted the previous post because I am uninterested in engaging in an interblog slugfest. I actually had no idea that the person in question reads my blog. What was meant to be a vent was quickly becoming a “he said/she said” thing and I have more important matters demanding my time and energy.
Now, let’s all get back to discussing my underwear.
Lofty goals
Me: So, what are your big plans for tomorrow?
You: I need to go buy some baggies.
Don’t hurt yourself, alright?
I’m great; chicken’s on sale; what the hell?
One of the joys of living in a small community is that if you’re hoping to run into someone you know, the chances of it happening are excellent. (One of the sucky things about living in a small community is that you’re also likely to run into people you’d rather not. Oh well.)
Anyway, it was with great jubilee today that I parked at the grocery store and noted a friend-of-a-friend pulling her van out of a nearby parking spot. I didn’t want to appear over-eager so I ran up along side her door and pounded on the window while she was checking traffic behind her. She only had a minor aneurysm. Then I caused a ten-car pileup there in the lot while I insisted she roll down her window to talk to me, rather than allowing her to go home and unpack her groceries.
Don’t you wish I lived in your town?
I had a good reason for doing what I did: we needed to talk. I haven’t seen this woman in months, and we had some catching up to do. I wanted to know how she was doing. I wanted to hear how life was going for her. I wanted to tell her she has lousy taste in men.
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