Some things bear repeating
Today I’m over at Feel More Better, talking about words, choosing them carefully, and repeating the important ones. As a person who’s spent most of my life trying to edit down the amount of stuff that comes out of my mouth (or my fingertips), it’s been interesting to realize that not everything that’s repetitive is is bad.
Come on over and weigh in—can you embrace being redundant? I’m trying to.
Various thoughts, both deep and not
I laid around with my virus-that-is-not-the-flu-dammit for a couple of days, and then I felt better and got up and did stuff. Then I felt sort of sick again. Then better. Now I am just annoyed by the whole thing; there is little I find as vexing as being sort-of-sick. Either I want to be Justifiably Ill and free to take to my bed without guilt, or I want to be well. This in-between thing where I just feel kind of punky is aggravating. Make up your mind, immune system!
So for however many days, there, dinnertime would roll around and I’d be all, “Oh, you’re hungry? Okay… ummmm… I think there’s some leftovers…?” I was falling down on my duties as a contributing member of the household, is my point. This weekend as I felt a little better I did things like dishes and laundry and such, and now today I’ve got a crock pot full of Karen’s turkey chili going (make that IMMEDIATELY if you’ve never had it; it’s phenomenal) (we used to eat it all the time until Chickadee went vegetarian, and then this weekend I was all OH HEY CHICKADEE’S NOT HERE, LET US DINE ON MEATINESS like I’d just realized we could do that), so I feel like I’m at least sort of earning my keep, again.
I’m in one of those phases where I lie in bed at night and have trouble turning my brain off. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, I busy Thinking Thinky Things, whether I want to or not. This is never good. read more…
Here, have some hand sanitizer
I was doing so well. Getting stuff done! Being a paragon of productivity! I should’ve known it couldn’t last.
So, uh, I don’t know if I mentioned this, but my therapist—who is awesome but seems to find sport in making me freak out about all manner of health-related things—asked me earlier this week if I’d gotten my flu shot this year. I am normally RELIGIOUS about my flu shot, seriously, but my primary care doctor has been out of vaccine and it kind of slipped my mind for a while. Anyway, my therapist was sure to tell me how this is the worst year for flu in a decade, blah blah blah DOOM DESTRUCTION AND CERTAIN DEATH (it’s possible she didn’t SAY that, but I am very good at reading between the lines), so naturally I realized I needed to get it done.
[Sidebar: Having a blog is handy, because I was able to go back and check and see that I last had the flu in March of 2007. What is funny (to me, anyway) is that I never did detail what happened, but I remember it like it was yesterday: I woke up one day with a fever of 104 and was pretty sure I was dying. BUT I was still single-parenting and had to get the kids ready for school somehow. This ended up with me sliding down the stairs and laying in the middle of the kitchen floor and exhorting my perplexed 7- and almost-9-year-olds to please, PLEASE, just eat something, take some money from my purse for school lunch, and for the love of God, DON’T TOUCH ME and DON’T MISS THE BUS. After they left I somehow managed to drive myself to my doctor’s office and also talk my doc out of hospitalizing me. GOOD TIMES.] read more…
Keeping me grounded
My Prednisone-fueled pace for 2013 continues unabated. I don’t know that I’m actually accomplishing anything beyond what a normal, functioning adult should be doing—possibly the last year has left me with a bar that is not so much low as it is smashed-on-the-ground and therefore easy to clear—but it certainly FEELS like I am Getting Crap Done in various areas of my life.
And yet, between cleaning things and getting work done and spending hours on the phone with the government (that’s… a whole ‘nother story for another time, and it shall be called Medicaid May Actually Be A Unicorn) and Getting Healthy Again (This Time With Feeling) and on and on and so forth, I have been a bit lax about doing some of those… shall we say… elusive “nice things for myself.”
So today, I did. I went out to lunch with a friend! And on my way home I stopped in at a consignment shop where I brought some stuff a looooong time ago, and lo, I had credit to spend, and before I knew what was happening, my “find a sensible black purse” mission had been supplanted by “OOOOH PURPLE!” and I was walking out of there with a “magenta leather” bag I clearly needed to have. LOOK AT ME, being wild and crazy. A purple purse! I may as well dance naked in the pale moonlight! (No, I am not getting out often enough; why do you ask?) [Edited to add: I did some research because I am NOT a Purse Person and was curious what I’d gotten. It’s this Coach Alexandra, from a 2009 (?) line.]
When I picked up Monkey from school, he pointed to my new bag on his seat and said, “What’s that?”
“My new purse!” I said, ever so pleased with myself. “It’s my favorite color!”
“You’re dressed head to toe in your favorite color,” he observed, with a small smirk. This was perplexing, as I’m not wearing any purple today at all. I’m wearing blue jeans and a black shirt. My face must’ve registered my confusion, because with a sweep of his arm, he proclaimed, “BRUISE. Now that you have that bag, the look is complete.”
So, uh, apparently my favorite color is “bruise.” He’s not wrong. (But I did enjoy that hour or so of feeling all sassy before I was schooled….)
Brass tacks for 2013
I’m currently in full-on LET’S GET THIS NEXT CHAPTER STARTED mode. Waiting for the flip of the calendar was arbitrary, sure, but sometimes you need something like that to help you move on.
So I flipped the calendar, put on my big girl panties, and am trying to Get Stuff Done. It’s terrifying, but kind of good, too.
On my way to this mode I watched some football, and had a few onion-dip-related epiphanies over at Feel More Better. I don’t know that it’s completely changed my life, or anything, but it definitely tweaked my outlook in a few important ways. Come on over and weigh in, if you’re so inclined.
And that’s why I put away all the laundry
Monkey’s birthday was delightful. I didn’t even mind getting up early to make cinnamon rolls for him to bring in to school to share with his buddies, because he’s just so darn delighted by it, and it doesn’t hurt that our intrepid Hippie School head teacher always tells me what a great baker I am. Yes, it’s all totally selfless, when I do this. Pay no attention to my preening in the corner. (Hey, I take affirmations where I can get ’em, people.)
I’d actually made the dough the night before, and done everything short of baking them and making the icing—the rolls were in the fridge proofing overnight in baking pans. This is the best way to do it, because 1) they end up really light and fluffy and 2) you get warm, ooey-gooey rolls first thing in the morning. AH-MAY-ZING.
Monkey awoke on Friday to a happy birthday phone call from his sister, then he padded downstairs and sniffed the air in the kitchen just as I was pulling the pans from the oven. “Nothing smells better than that,” he said, with a happy sigh. I slapped a big glob of icing on the largest roll and set it at his place at the table. Nothing but the best sugar coma for my birthday boy, you know. read more…
Now we are thirt
We’ve been arguing about it for months. MONTHS! Every time you said, “I’m going to be a TEENAGER soon,” I replied with a swift verbal smackdown:
“No. NO YOU’RE NOT. I won’t allow it. You can’t!”
You laughed, every time. The joke never grows old. (Then again, when has a joke ever grown old with you? Exactly. Wait, let me guess: You’re Batman? I thought so!)
About a week ago, you told me you had the solution. “Mom. Mom! Since you don’t want me to be a teenager, I’ve decided I’ll just turn THIRT. No teen, see?” I agreed that this was an excellent solution. “Maybe when you stop freaking out then I can add the ‘teen’ part back.” I assured you that that would never happen.
You don’t understand why I’m taking this so hard, why I simply cannot wrap my brain around the idea that there’s no denying you’re on your way to adulthood. I wasn’t like this with your sister. read more…
Jeepers, creepers
Based upon the last post, you might be tempted to believe that the most extensive craft that happened here at Casa Mir during Chickadee’s visit was the Great Vision Board Extravaganza. It was certainly the craftiest thing that I, personally, did, but it wasn’t the craftiest thing overall.
That saying about absence making the heart grow fonder was never more true than it has been for my children this year. Monkey doesn’t so much wear his heart on his sleeve as he just walks around in a giant Monkey-heart-suit, gushing blood and hugs everywhere he goes. Every single time Chickadee was hospitalized he missed her terribly; every time she was home, he wanted to be with her (even if she had no desire to be with him).
Chickadee, on the other hand, was plenty busy wrestling her various demons, and so if she missed Monkey, in the beginning, it certainly wasn’t apparent. And then his clingy version of love during her stints at home were largely unwelcome. I think until she moved away in October, she had convinced herself he was a standard Pesky Little Brother, end of story. But AFTER she left, things changed. I mean, yes, LOTS of things changed, but in particular, I think Chickie came to see Monkey in a new, kinder light. She missed him, maybe for the first time.
And so she began plotting. read more…
Good riddance, 2012
I feel like I could make with OH SO MANY WORDS about the suckage of 2012, but frankly I am sick of it and have no desire to rehash. If you were here, you already know. If you weren’t, well, I guess we could do an in-a-nutshell retrospective as a sidebar if I could do one for real.
[I can’t do a real sidebar, so here’s a fake one. Sidebar: 2012 sucked hairy donkey balls. Chickadee spent half the year in the hospital and I spent months fighting for Medicaid coverage for her while fighting for decent treatment, and then she decided to go live with her dad. (Single bright spot during that: You all helped me do an amazing thing for the hospital and I love you for it.) Otto’s car imploded in Atlanta one day and then we had to rush Monkey to the ER with suspected appendicitis and my mother-in-law passed away. For further hilarity, I then broke my hand on an apple and became bionic. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, we capped it all off with it seeming like Licorice might be deathly ill (though, fortunately, that one turned out okay). It was kind of A Year, is all I’m saying.]
Was there ever a year I was so happy to see end? I can’t think of one. Though we all know that the human brain is a miraculous thing; if there HAS been a year similarly awful, I have clearly repressed it. Lalalalala! I can’t heeeeeear you! I look forward to this year’s razor-sharp edges dulling in my mind, as well. The sooner the better.
Naturally, there was nothing left to do but get my woo-woo on. read more…
Licorice declares it best Christmas ever
Q: Mir, are you totally phoning it on your blog while you soak up the good moments with your girl and weather the rest of the emotional storm that is a still-not-entirely-well kid with a wicked case of homesickness who isn’t dealing well with the fact that she has to leave again in a few days?
A: Yes. Yes, I am. Sorry (I’m not sorry).
Oh, look, it’s a very happy doggie on Christmas morning:
And this is what I just found while packing up the Christmas stuff:
Moral of the story: Sometimes love hurts.