I blog to avoid the internet.

Fifteen minutes tonight filling out permission slips and volunteer forms and her reading log - I feel so grown up!  There's never a moment I drop the responsibility, never a moment their care isn't a live current running underneath everything else happening in my brain, but sometimes, when I have a quiet moment to sit and really think, it blows my mind that I am a mother, responsible for the lives and well-being of two other entire humans.  What they eat, what they wear, when they bathe, how they play - I have a say in all of it.  Not just a say - I damn-near control it entirely.  It's crazy to me that someone let me have this much responsibility without checking to make sure I'm qualified in any way for this much power.  No Pressure.

G had her first parent/teacher conference today, and it lined up perfectly with C's follow-up pelvic ultrasound, so Jimi took the phone conference in the car with G in the backseat while C and I went inside for her appointment.  They were done with her so quickly, we were back to the car in time for the last part of the conversation.  Basically, she's awesome.  She's reading and writing at nearly a first grade level, which is awesome.  She's ahead of most of her class in math, but she needs to keep practicing on her counting (that jump from 29 to 30 fouls her up every time).  She's a little ray of sunshine, a joy to have in class, friendly and helpful to all of her peers.  I heard the part about how they had to move her to a new table because she was too social, and how they expect they'll have to move her again eventually when she gets social with this table too, and I grinned because, yep, that's my girl.

They told us not to expect C's results for a few days.  The technician took the pics, the radiologist "reads" them and sends results to our doc, then we should hear from our doc in a few days.  I want to hold a goshdang Kaizen event to get these people in line - can't we remove a step or two here and multitask to improve turnaround?  For gosh sakes.  Anytime you're in an ultrasound of any sort, you desperately just want to know, "Does everything look normal?"  She didn't halt the test and go get a doc for a second opinion or anything, so there's that, but when she was done, she did say that she needed to check with her doc and asked us to wait for just a moment.  I felt a small pit of dread drop itself into the center of my stomach, but she came back within a few minutes and said we were all set, good to go.  That doesn't answer any questions, though.  So we wait.  And keep sending out into the universe good vibes for no big deal.

My head is a mess, guys.  I'm so sad when I scroll through my social media pages - pictures of new babies and family gatherings sandwiched between horrid tales from sexual assault victims and memes joking about sexual assault survivors posted by men I previously believed to be Good Men.  I want to stay informed, but I've realized my desire to be informed is not so much keeping me abreast of current events so much as depressing the fuck out of me.  I can scroll for hours in twitter and facebook and Instagram, but I'm not gaining any new knowledge or enlightenment from it - I'm just following the crowd into the hole of chaos and awfulness.  I tried to step back last night; I drew myself a warm bath, threw in a bath bomb, turned on a YouTube meditation video to help with stress and anxiety, and tried to let it all go.  When my bath was over, I didn't feel any better, I felt lost and still so sad.  I asked Jimi if he would hold me; I just needed to lie in bed with his arms around me and feel safe.  He did, and I cried and cried until I couldn't breathe through my nose anymore.  I sobbed the big shaking sobs you cry when you're heartbroken, because I am heartbroken.

"I want to live in a world where everything is fair, where everyone is treated equally, where everyone has to follow the same rules."   Why is that too much to ask?

I am aghast at the state of our nation today.  I am appalled.  But I've been doing a little learning, and I'm learning that I shouldn't be all that shocked.  To paraphrase a post I saw somewhere by someone on some social media something:

The United States 

was formed by 

wealthy white supremacists 

to promote their interests and agenda.  

The system is working 

exactly as it was designed.  

In-fucking-deed.  

So yeah.  I'm having a hard time over here, but I'm taking steps to get better.  A social media hiatus between now and election night is on the agenda. I'm even avoiding some of my favorite podcasts, because they're political and informative and the facts they give stress me the fuck out.

Self care, right?  That should be the word of 2018.  It's the only way most of us will survive it.

Scrapbooking

When I was a teenager, starting at 14, I kept a scrapbook. It wasn't full of cutesy stickers or pictures with scalloped edges, that wasn't a big thing until a few years later.  This one was a photo album, the kind made from a 3-ring binder full of pages that are sticky on each side and covered with a sheet of clear plastic, crafted into a baby book - you know, those things moms-to-be get at their baby showers and then keep in the box it came in, shoved in the closet or basement ,until you find it long after those babies are no longer babies and you stick it in the yard sale or donate it to goodwill?   This one was given to Momma when she was pregnant with Dylan.  It had a gender-neutral mother goose fabric and was trimmed with alternating blue and pink lace.  The fabric was quilted, and lightly stuffed, and had a picture-frame sleeve sewn into the front cover.  But, as a 14 year old girl suddenly with a new life outside of my family, I felt a primal urge to document the important and awesome things that were happening in my life, and it was full of those pages that are sticky on both sides, and so when I found it in the back room downstairs and mom said I could have it, cover be damned, this would fit the bill.  I called it "my book".  As in, "Do you want to come over and hang out and look at my book? I made a new page last night."  Or, "I have an entire page of my book devoted to him,"  or, "here, look at this page in my book, it'll explain how I feel better than out loud words can." 

I spent hours physically formatting pages with high-school class schedules and picture-day wallet-sized photos of my friends, cutting out, with normal straight-edge scissors, from-film pictures taken at Kat's house, at Drill meets, at family events, so I could paste them into my book. I pasted in Valentines from classmates, comic strips, and handwritten poems.  I poured over old copies of Readers Digest (from Granny & Pappaw's house) and cut out the best quotes that seemed so epiphanic, so important and new and big to my young 14 year old brain:

"We are born with our eyes closed and our mouths open, and spend our entire lives trying to correct that mistake of nature."

"The words penalty, restrict and violate appeared more times in President Clinton's health care bill than in his crime bill."

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us."

"An apology is the super glue of life; it can repair just about anything."

I drew pictures with pencil, practicing the shading skills I was learning in my freshman art class.  I cut article titles from Cosmopolitan (mine) and Home & Gardens and Woman's Day and Ladies Home Journal (all mom's) to paste into collages to express my heartache when my boyfriend kissed another girl.  I made pages filled with birthday cards from my aunts and grandparents and friends.  And more Reader's Digest quotes:

"When one finds himself in a hole of his own making, it is a good time to examine the quality of workmanship."

"Being defeated is often a temporary condition.  Giving up is what makes it permanent."

Newspaper articles from my friend's rappelling accident, the one that nearly killed him. 

There's a pretty definitive line where I find my dad's old Time Magazines.  All of a sudden, there's a political spin on the pages - they're not just about my day to day life, my relationship drama - there's all of those things, then you turn a page, and there's a black and white cartoon of a man holding a gun on a doctor who's standing between the legs of a pregnant woman who's lying on a table, and the doc is holding the pointed edge of a knife over her belly.  The caption says "Justifiable homicide?"  The question mark is in the shape of a fetus.  Other additions to this page include cut-outs of protest posters that read "choose life, abortion kils" and "why not kill the baby killers?"  The next page has pics of flag code violations titled "Do you salute the dog?" and a "Powell '96" button.  Turn the page -  A cartoon from 2/15/93 that shows a line of people waiting in front of a sign that reads "white house tour" - the guide says "The Clintons ask that there be no smoking in the white house."  one of the citizens in line asks, "What if we don't inhale?" 

TIME didn't change my scrapbooking style, but it definitely gave me a new facet of my opinions to explore.  The traditionally "women-focused" magazines I was drawing from didn't invite me to have a political opinion, and while I am appalled at much of what I apparently believed back in 1994, and while I know none of that was geared toward me, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for that first introduction into political conversation. 

I said all that to say this:  The girls who find their dad's old TIME magazines today are working with way better material than I ever had.  I'm going to go find a few copies of this one tomorrow to keep on hand.

a day in the life...

The girls lost TV privileges last night for not listening.  For three days, because that's the number that came out of my mouth with exactly zero forethought or consideration when I was doling out their punishment.  They're actually being punished because they poked a hole in Daddy's air mattress, by jumping around on it when they'd been told over and over not to do that, to lie down and watch their movie or we'd put it up.  It was patched easily, but still, when you don't listen and you break things that belong to other people, there needs to be repercussions.  Television and candy are the only currencies my children recognize and in my efforts not to give them food issues I'm trying really hard not to give them candy and treats as a reward for good behavior and, as such, I don't withhold those things when they've been naughty, either.  But TV, that magical rabbit hole, I can take it away and they feel it to their core.  They're like little junkies, and those first few hours without are always rough, but even more so if you don't have something else planned, which, of course, I did not last night as I capriciously bellowed out their sentence.  But whatever.  It's not like I planned the second kid, either - living life by the seat of my pants over here.

Cora is in a phase.  She'll be 3 in two short days, so I'm going to rely on the old fall back and straight up blame her wild behavior lately on her tender age.  She is wild, though.  WILD.  If you're reading this, maybe you've noticed the Instagram feed over there on the right - did you catch the picture of her covered in enamel model paint?  She'd been upstairs for a few minutes.  Geneva was up there too, but it's a large space for two little girls, and it's not unusual for them to play separately.  I don't know what I was doing downstairs - laundry, dinner, cleaning, drinking - but I realized I hadn't heard from her in a few full minutes.  I started up the stairs as I called her name, and I smelled it immediately - you know the smell, that fumey paint smell.  Oh shit was my only thought, and then she came around the corner and I said it out loud, "Oh shit."  Her right arm was a swirl of sticky purple and red and white and black enamel paint, the sort that comes in tiny glass jars to be applied to miniature figurines with tiny little brushes; her left hand was the same, up past her wrist, and her chin and cheeks were similarly styled.  Cora had found these 10 year old glass bottles on a shelf in a closet, unscrewed the lids, and had, I can only imagine, poured the paint into her hands and rubbed it onto her face and arms as if it were lotion.

In a blur, I checked her over with my hands and eyes the way a mom will, making sure she didn't have it in her eyes, her nose, her mouth - somehow, she didn't. I was yelling for Jimi at the same time, thinking in the back of my head, "He'll know what to do, he'll know an easy way to fix this, he knows something about everything."  When he put his head into the stairwell and saw us there, saw colorful Cora, I saw the oh shit in his eyes, and his words only backed that up - he had no idea was to do, and he sounded a little higher pitched than normal.  I don't want to say he was panicking, but he was close - he was scared, and that scared me too, but also, strangely, it made me calm down nearly immediately.  I used my calm serious voice, the one that is very matter-of-fact, and as he stripped her down in the bathroom, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed the Dawn dish soap and my phone and delivered the Dawn to the bathroom as I googled "how to remove testors model paint from skin".  The answer, if you're not interested in googling, is vegetable oil and glycerin soap.  We had vegetable oil, and the CVS up the road had glycerin soap I figured, so I left Jimi and the paint-covered child in the bathtub with a gallon-bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil and headed to the CVS.  They had glycerin - not soap, but in a little squeeze bottle.  I figured it would work well enough, and it did, with the Dawn, and with poor Jimi rubbing and sudsing for nearly an hour.  He even got it out of her hair.

That's sort of the way it is with her right now.  The Friday before the paint incident, thirty minutes after I'd left to head over to visit a friend, she apparently decided to try to change her own poopy pull-up and covered the bathroom in shit.  I missed that completely, thank goodness.  Poor Jimi.

But yeah, 2 days before 3. She's sunshine and rainbows and silver linings - she wakes up happy every single morning; she's quick to tell me she loves me and that I'm her favorite and that I'm beautiful; when she gets in trouble she says "I'm so sorry, Mommy.  I'm so so sorry." But she's also into everything, like a little tornado.  She bounces from one thing to the next without a break in between.  I'm regularly surprised to find myself cleaning one mess while she makes another mess, again, for the 4th time, and we've only been home for an hour.  I should stop being surprised, probably, but how realistic is that?  I'm still ever the optimist, thinking all day at work about how much I miss my precious little angels and how they are going to be so sweet and loving and well behaved once I pick them up from daycare and we head home to a fabulous evening of family dinner, a game or two, maybe a walk around the block, then bath, story, bed...and then I actually pick them up and one of them is in a shitty mood and the other just wants to play but it's at the absolute most inopportune time because we're in a parking lot and there are cars and also other parents but I don't give much of a fuck about what they think but I do still care a little because i'm not going to yell "get the fuck over here right now!" the way I'd really like to do.  And then the pouty one pouts her way into her carseat as I wrestle the playful-turned-screaming-banshee one into hers and by the time I'm buckling myself into my seat I'm angry and my heart is racing and what the fuck I looked forward to THIS all day?!

But I am still an optimist, because some nights are nights like tonight, when Geneva had a good report from her teacher and was giddy with the praise, and Cora ran into my arms and hugged me and said "I missed you so much!"  We laughed our way to the car, the three of us, and got buckled without any breakdowns. Cora is newly forward-facing, so she can talk and interact in a brand new way.  We talked and sang the new Taylor Swift song on the drive home, then we danced to Katy Perry and Psy in the dining room until it was dinnertime, when we changed the playlist to The Avett Brothers.  Dinner was delicious, and so was the piece of Halloween candy they each got to choose from their stashes after dinner. 

They wanted to paint, so we made it happen.  Cora had a shower, then we played Baby Store.  We can't watch the store being built, aka them getting naked down to their underwear/pull-up (presumably because new babies are naked under their blankets?)  and into their blankets, so if we don't hear them the first time they call us to come shopping, or if we don't come to the store quickly enough, Geneva - who up to this point has given instructions to us in her lilting sweet voice "Pretend you wanted two little girls who were perfect for you but you had to go to the baby store to buy them and me and cora were the babies you buyed" - will break character and scream out in her angry voice "Mom!! You have to come buy us!"  When we go into the store (usually the living room), they'll be laying on the floor or on the couch in pretend baby beds, wrapped in bedsheets or quilts that have probably been found in the basket of clean blankets and sheets I've just carried up from the laundry room, where said blankets and sheets were just as likely to have been washed because they'd been drug across the floor by these two versus having actually been used as bedding on a bed.  They'll be goo-ing and ga-ing and making little baby-like noises, and my job as the mom is to walk up to each one of them, fawn over how precious they are, and then ask them if they want to come home with me and be my new baby girl.  They always say yes, and I never have to actually pay anyone - I just pick them up and carry them to whatever part of the house Geneva has designated our pretend home, and then we either play kitchen or start all over.  Sometimes Cora is already my baby and she and I go to the store together to buy her a sister.  Tonight the game was Jimi didn't want any babies, but said I could have some if I wanted them. I went to the store, picked out each baby individually, then carried her to her daddy, who cooed and gooed over each girl in turn. 

They were both thrilled with their game of make-believe, and didn't argue a bit when I announced bedtime/story time.  We read a PeppaPig story about George and his dinosaur balloon.  I held Cora a moment and snuggled her, but she wanted down - and promptly climbed over the rail and into her crib, where she covered herself up and said, "Goodnight, Mommy, I love you."  Jimi came in to pat her as he sang to us all. Geneva was mad when I said I was going to sit with her rather than lie down in her bed - I've slept in there a lot the last few nights at her request and my back is a wreck because of it.  She pouted, but I held her until she was over it and she let me tuck her back in without argument.  She told me she loved me, I fluffed her blanket three times, and the night, that part of my night, the awake electric bright white part of my evening, was over.

And here I sit with the dregs of hot tea turned cold, surprised at how long it took to tell you those things and at how good it felt.  At how good it feels.  These are the days I want to remember.  These are the stories I want to tell. 

Also:  Last night, Cora fell asleep early, so we sat at the table and ate dinner as a family of three.  We were probably 2 hours in to our television moratorium.  Geneva loved the mashed potatoes and asked for seconds.  She loved her family.  She was so happy to be eating dinner as a family.  She liked the green beans a little.  (These are all things she told us, verbatim.)  She and I played Go Fish after dinner until bedtime - we tied once and I won once.  She didn't even pout - she kept proclaiming how much fun she was having.  There's seriously something to this no TV thing.  I think our Netflix is suddenly broken...

Cuppa

Tea at 11. P, that is. Caffeine fee, of course.

Thinking. Always replaying. I could've i should've done that so much better...

Tomorrow I will...  Tomorrow, I will. I will, tomorrow.

What if tomorrow never comes?  What if I never do better than I did today?  What if today was my absolute best?

I know better.

It's hard. All of it. Everything. Even when it's easy, it's still hard.

And beautiful. And perfect. And everything I always said I'd always wanted.

Tea finished, hour late, alarm early.

Goodnight. Until tomorrow.

Back on the horse, or something.

It's overcast outside, hot and humid and the air feels pregnant with rain but it's only managing to do something that can't really even be called a sprinkle, and even that is only coming once every couple hours for 15 minutes at a time.  I took a walk at lunch anyhow, a brisk 20 minute walk on a winding path in a private park not too far from the office.  It was hot and I probably need more deodorant, but whatever.  It felt good to move. 

I'm in another one of those funks I get into - the one where I don't want to interact with anyone, where I don't want to do anything but sit and scroll through mindless crap on the internet, where I can't get enough carbs into my diet each day.  The internet is a dangerous place for my stress these days, though - every new click reveals some new vile thing happening in the world.  It's safe at home - at home, in my kitchen and living room and bedroom, I'm safe and the bad stuff is not around.  And a few weeks of avoiding the gym and eating like crap, it makes me feel bad and my clothes don't fit and then I fall into this spiral of self-loathing…

Anyone else?  I'm not the only one, right? 

Baby steps, that's what "they" say - baby steps to making better choices.  I'm not a baby steps kind of girl. I'm more of a "one big giant leap", "change all of the things all at the same time" sort of girl.  And then, when I fall down on the tiniest part of that, I quit it all and go back to into my misery spiral.  This morning, I decided to start tracking my food again.  I'll drink plenty of water, eat good things, won't overeat, hell, I may even go to the gym tonight…And then I bought some candy bars.  And ate two of them. Because, Yum! Carbs!  So the last thing I logged was a Butterfinger bar.  But hey!  I logged it!  That's a real improvement for me.  Normally, I only log for the first half of the day, until I make a bad decision, and then I quit logging and decide I'll start again tomorrow. 

Geneva and Cora - those little girls.  Geneva told me this morning she wants pizza rolls for dinner; pizza rolls and salad and grapes.  I didn't even know she'd ever had pizza rolls - apparently that's a thing they eat at daycare for lunch.  I sure wish I could afford to send my kid to the daycare that serves them actual real food, but that school was more than my mortgage each month for one kid.  I'd be better off quitting my job and fixing their food myself, except then I couldn't afford to buy real food for them either.  Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.  I'm super against not-real food; we're having pizza rolls and salad for dinner.  It's not fake pizza, it's "different" pizza. Square pizza. That's what Geneva said.

I've had a hard time writing because I haven't known what to write about.  I started thinking no one would want to read random snippets of my life, and so what's the point of writing if I don't have some profound essay or pronouncement to share?  I forgot why I started this boring blog in the first place - because I like boring blogs.  I don't read many anymore, but I still love coming across one of those rare sites where people share the mundane day to day details of their lives; the intimate portraits they paint of the lives they lead.  And really, as much as I love the dream of someday writing an amazing best seller, a more realistic goal is to just write.  I should write for myself, so I can look back and see how far I've come.  I should write for Jimi, should he ever wonder how I really feel about him.  And I should write for those girls, so they know how much their mommy loves them and what our day to day was like when they were itty bitty.  I feel so much guilt already over the parts I've missed and forgotten by not writing them down as they happened, but I am forgiving toward myself because I know these last few early years have been a whirlwind and I've done what I could.  Besides, who has time for regrets?  Life is so short.  Too short for that.

So yeah, tonight we're having pizza rolls for dinner. I bought more construction paper yesterday, so maybe we can spend some time coloring and cutting and gluing tonight - that's always a fun activity.  And we still have lots of water balloons we can play with, so long as we bathe in the Skin So Soft first so the skeeters won't eat up poor little Cora.  I'll try to keep them from watching too much TV and will probably fail miserably by 7 p.m., although if we make it to 7 p.m. without turning on the TV I will consider it a well-fought battle.  I wish we could ride bikes but the heat is so stifling it sucks all the fun out of playing outside.   I'm sure they both need a bath.

I love our boring little lives.  

Wednesday Night Whatever.

Everything in the news makes me heartsick and disgusted and scared.  Our collective apathy makes me feel weak and vulnerable. 

I try to remember that I am only responsible for, that I can only control, my actions - that I cannot take on the guilt of the bad people in the world.  I try to remind myself that what I have did not come from taking from the have-nots.  I want to do more, I should do more, to help those who have less, who need more, but some days it's a struggle just to get to the end of the day.  And then I feel terrible for not pushing a bit harder, as if my not making a bunch of sandwiches for homeless people is directly causing worldwide hunger to not be fixed already. 

Ugh.  The world is so ugly. 

This is why I stay home all the time.  It's safe in here.  It's full of funny happy people who love each other, even if they hit and scratch and bite sometimes, and yell, and cry and whine...still.  Way safer than your average public gathering these days.  Also, I'm always tired.  And taking the girls to other peoples' homes freaks me out because I'm afraid they're going to get on your nerves or break something or stain something.  And I still have stupid terrible mom guilt any time I leave them with Grandma because I feel like I'm imposing on my mom and abandoning my kids all at the same time, so it makes it hard to let loose and have a good time, ya know? 

This was supposed to be a Facebook post, not a blog entry.  Whatever. 

_______ Makes Me Happy.

If my day could go exactly as I wanted, exactly as I planned, with only my own wants and needs and desires mapping the way, how would it look?  I make up little stories all the time and tell myself, "If I didn't have to work, I could do that all the time," but when I have time off, time to kill, I often wonder what I should do or what there is to do, or, worse still, I lock up at the prospect of all of the things I could be doing and end up doing nothing because I am unable to make a decision.  I keep telling myself I should make a jar of things to do, and when I find myself without an immediate plan, I should pull something from that jar and do that thing.  Why don't I do that?  I should.  And for the girls, too.  For them I'll call it, "No TV Today". 

 

Attachment

Hi Facebook!  I've been avoiding you for days now because all of the politics makes me angry and sad and anxious.  My brain is quieter now than it has been for weeks, and I haven't dreamed about Donald or Hillary once in the last couple days.  But I also missed some great pictures and announcements and opportunities to find out what's going on in the lives of the people I love.  But I spent way more time playing with my kids and walking my dog.  Why is Facebook so good and bad both at the same time?

I got a new phone.  It seems pretty cool, but I'm still really bummed about those lost voice recordings.  So incredibly bummed.  When Jimi and I first started dating, I had a hard time understanding what he meant when he talked about attachment being the source of all pain, and how as a Buddhist, he strives to let go of attachment.  I thought he was just trying to creatively tell me he wanted to hook up with other chicks, but that wasn't the case.  He was talking real deep stuff, and while I can grasp the idea and concept, I'm really really bad at the practice and application of avoiding attachment to things.  I catch myself thinking about those lost singalongs with my sweet girl, and I get so deeply sad knowing I'll never hear them again... I have to remind myself that I enjoyed them in the moment, and again later the times I listened to them or played them for others, and it's okay that they're gone.  I have her, we will sing so many more songs together.  We will tell so many more stories.  I shouldn't waste those potential moments mourning moments that are already over.

I read too much Facebook.  It's still really noisy. 

I just decided I really do like my new phone.  So at least there's that. 

Sweet dreams.

As a mother of daughters, to all mothers of sons:

As a mother of daughters, to all mothers of sons:

I respectfully ask that you please, please take this moment, in light of the most recent political news, to speak to your boys and young men about how to treat women.

Talk to them about how you grew up being told that you needed to watch what you wore so you wouldn't be assaulted.

Talk to them about how at every party you've ever been to, you had to remember to keep your drink with you, with your hand over it, and not to accept drinks from anyone, regardless of how well you knew them, so that you wouldn't be drugged and raped.

Talk to them about how you don't walk the dog or run alone before dawn or after dark without pepper spray or a weapon of some sort.

Talk to them about how you're always on guard in a room full of men, even in professional settings where you should feel safe.

Talk to them about how you've laughed at jokes that weren't funny because to speak out would've labeled you a trouble maker.

Talk to them about the times you were touched in ways that weren't okay, but you allowed it because you didn't feel safe saying no.

Please, tell your sons that it is never okay to grab a woman by the...anything. Tell them it's not okay to touch women, ever, unless they're being explicitly invited. Talk to them about how consent is absolutely necessary and required before each and every sexual act. Teach them that locker room banter describing sexual assault is disgusting. Teach them that a "boys will be boys" attitude assumes all men and boys are predators. Teach them that not all men are predators; teach them to not be predators. Teach them to respect women. Teach them to treat every woman they meet with the same respect they'd give you, or your mother, or your daughter.

Brock Turner's mom wishes she'd had an opportunity like this. Don't pass it up. You may think you've done a fabulous job with your young man, and you probably have, but talk to them about this anyhow. Make sure you've said the words that need to be said, not just implied them. Leave no doubt in his mind about what the expectations are. This is really important.

Please. Do this for my girls, for your daughters, for your mothers, for yourselves. Do this for your sons. This is really important.

Politics makes me sad. The world makes me sad.

I want to post something political, but I don't actually want to have a political conversation, I just want to convince everyone I know to not vote for one particular candidate, and we all know how super successful those facebook posts are, right?  So I won't.  I'm really terribly sick of this election; it is too scary to think too long about the potential outcomes.  I skim over the articles I really want to click on because I know it'll just depress me more and I can't control a bit of it so why should I even give it any space in my head?

******

That being said - you're not going to vote for Donald Trump, are you? 

I am a mother of daughters, two sweet little girls who I want to have every opportunity in this world I've brought them into.  Therefore, I cannot vote Republican.  It's a moral issue.  Republicans, the ones who make the laws, at least, do not empower women.  I will not vote for one, or for anyone who is pretending to be one. 

I believe in  science, from climate to reproduction - there are people who go to school for a long time to know a whole lot about that stuff.  Republicans, the ones who makes the laws, at least, ignore these people in favor of religion and the alter of the almighty dollars.  Therefore, I cannot vote Republican.  It's a moral issue.  

******

I said I don't want to talk politics, dammit. 

There is so much awfulness in the world.  Why do we allow ourselves to be inundated by it?

I'm going to practice keeping myself safe.  I think it's going to require stepping away from the internet. Facebook, specifically.  Maybe until the election is over? Maybe forever?  Maybe for just the next hour? 

I have to find a way to not worry about things I cannot control.  Syria.  Syrian refugees.  This fucking shitstorm election.  Cops killing brown people for being brown.  Homeless people.  Broke single mothers.  Rich hating the poor.  Men hating women.  Women hating women.  Me learning to hate people I used to respect because they're fucking sheep. 

I need to not give the awfulness space in my mind.  Andrea told me once, "If I can't do anything about it, I just do not give it any space in my thoughts."  I cannot for the life of me figure out how in the fuck that works in actual daily life, but I have to figure it out.  The sad seeps into everything.

I am at the top of my game - everything is going my way - and I'm not happy.  I don't think it's because I'm doing anything wrong, or because I'm lacking something.  I think it's all the noise.  I think it's just too much sad and terrible and tragic and awful, and it gets into my brain and I can't shake it.  I worry constantly about things I cannot control or fix or help, and I feel guilt and more worry because I cannot fix or help or control those things.  Maybe I need a therapist.  Hi, person reading my blog.  Welcome to my most recent therapy session.  Today I'm discussing my particular version of crazy. 

******

I just want to make the world a happier place.  A safer place.  I just want us to all take care of each other.  I don't understand why we're all so afraid of each other.  We're all fighting the same battles, trudging through the same trenches.  Why do we try to hold our neighbors down?  Don't we all rise together?   

I don't want this path we're on to be the legacy we're leaving for our children. 

That last sentence sounds trite, but I have never written anything with more truth behind it. 

Wherein I gush more about my husband.

I cut my gym time short tonight so I could come home and write.  Then I got here, and I don't know what to write about. There was more sleep last night, more than the last few nights.  Then Cora puked on the way out the door this morning.  Then G told me a story about how she snuck into my bedroom last night while I was asleep and took my keys and my purse and my glasses and my phone and my necklace and got in the car and drove to the market by herself because she was a very naughty girl.  And then she told a story about her "superhero Mom Natalie, and superhero Daddy and superhero sister and superhero puppy".  She thinks we're all superheroes.  If we're not doing anything else right, I think we're doing this parenting thing pretty okay.  The girls are happy and loved and loving...the kids are alright.  We're doing just fine.

I feel better when I talk to other women and realize that while I thought they totally had their shit together, they're actually treading water or semi-drowning, just like me.  I don't feel better because I want them to have a bit of the same crazy I have - but yes I do.  I am so relieved and glad that I'm not the only one.  Especially when it's women who look like they really know what they're doing - then you find out they haven't done laundry in 4 months, they just buy new clothes for everyone every few weeks and charge it on the secret store card their husband doesn't know about.  I don't actually know anyone in that situation, but if I ever write a book, she may make an appearance. 

I'm falling in love with my husband again.  I never stopped loving him or being in love with him, but you know, it's hard when you have kids and jobs and dishes and laundry and a dog.  Saturday is our fourth wedding anniversary - next month, 10/19, is ten years since the night we "met".  We'd been introduced previously, but that Thursday night in October was when we each learned the other's name.  I'd had some vague plan in the back of my mind for years that I wanted to do something special to celebrate "us" this year, but, you know, life is hard.  That was a ball I dropped. 

Jimi, though.  Jimi always picks up where I leave off, or begins when I can't. 

I dropped the ball when it comes to planning a trip for our anniversary, but I didn't slack or forget to bring my A game.  Life is hard, but goddammit, this thing we've got is good, and I'm going to try to show him that I appreciate him.  Months ago, I discovered a thing called Battlbox.  It seemed like it would be right up his alley - something he would really love, that appeals to the camper/prepper/hunter/protector in him.  I waited until I thought I timed the box to arrive just before September 17th, then planned to run the subscription through December if he liked it - you know, for his birthday and Christmas.  Because I am lazy and also when I find something I like, I really like it a lot until I don't like it anymore because I've worn it out.  Long story short, he fucking loves it, said it's the best gift I've ever given him, and that was just the first box.  Awesome!

Because he loved this awesome gift so much, and because he loves me, or because he's just the most amazing man in the history of ever and just can't help being so fucking awesome, for our actual anniversary weekend.....

I don't know.  He told me to take off work on Friday and Monday.  I don't know the plan beyond that we're dropping the girls off with Mom and Dad at 9 a.m. Saturday morning, and that we'll be in the car for a couple hours, he said. 

I can't fucking wait.  Even if the few hours in the car part is bullshit and we're just coming back home to sleep and eat and screw in peace and quiet (or not), I'll be thrilled to have the time alone with my sweet husband. 

That sweet sweet man.  The one who for a decade almost has been my safe place, my comfort zone. The one who has made all of my dreams come true.  The best part of my life started when I met him.  Ten years in, I am still just aflutter and completely smitten. Moreso, even.  It's been ten years worth of amazing.  10/10, would do again.

This is starting to become a pattern.

It's 4:22 a.m., and looky where I am!  I'd hoped to get to sleep past 3, but Cora had other plans.  Actually, she didn't have any plans - she had a nasty cough that choked her and caused her to throw up all over herself in bed, poor little baby.  So there was a bath and sheet changing and rocking...and now there is coffee and my laptop, which smells like yesterday's coffee because I left my cup sitting next to the computer when I walked away and Cora thought the coffee would look better in the laptop rather than beside it.  The keys are sticking slightly, mostly the lower right side of the keyboard, but the damn thing is working and the coffee creamer smell isn't horrible, even if it is a little too sweet.  Yay for not having to buy a new laptop this week!

I need to do laundry, but there's a big spider living down there right now and I'm terrified.  I just can't even with the spiders anymore.  I think later today I'll take the girls up to the park - there's a tree that drops hedge apples along the side of the road every year; I could grab some of those and put them around downstairs.  They're supposed to keep the creepy crawlies away.  I've tolerated the spiders for years and years, but they're getting so entitled  -  webs everywhere and teeny tiny baby spiders showing up every few months.  I appreciate that they're probably keeping other creepy crawlies away, but I have this rule about coexisting with spiders that requires them to stay out of sight so I can pretend they don't exist.  They're breaking the rules.

My goals for the day are the same as nearly every other Sunday - get the house to a state that sort of resembles clean, wash enough clothes to get us all through the week (bonus points for pairing outfits for the week tonight, too!), plan dinners for the week (maybe even do some meal prep), and somehow, in the middle of that, play with the girls in ways that enrich their minds and spirits, get them outside, get myself outside, walk the dog, go to the gym, fuck my husband...

There are never enough hours in the day.  Even if you start at 4 a.m.

I complain all the time that I need another three hours in the middle of my day, and another two at night. It feels like all of my problems would be solved with an extra day or two off each week.  Realistically, I know I'd find ways to fill those new-found hours with things that aren't on my to-do lists, but I'd get more done than I do now.    *Sigh* Maybe one day.

How do you manage it all?  What are your secrets and hints and tips and life hacks?  How do you juggle it all?

Timing is everything.

Today is February 28, 2016.

Ten years ago today, my world...the go-to line here is to say "my world shattered", or "my world fell apart," but ten years out, it doesn't feel like that anymore, so to write that feels fake and overly dramatic.  Ten years ago today, my first husband, whom I shouldn't have married in the first place, told me he wanted a divorce.  My whole life I've heard things like "You forget the pain of childbirth," and I always thought that was probably bullshit, until I went through it twice without pain meds and realized a few months out that the details of the pain were fuzzy and that it doesn't seem like it was all that bad when I look back.  I know that's bullshit, because it hurts like hell, but time softens the razor edges.  Heartache is like that too - it gets dull with time.  I guess that's why it feels disingenuous to claim my world fell apart back then, when he said those words to me.  I still remember those words: "Fuck it, I'm done. I'm coming back to El Paso, I'm getting my shit, and I'm done."  Or something like that.  That's probably not an exact quote anymore; it's been a long time since I remembered that day in any real detail. 

The truth is that by the time he said those things to me, I'd been hoping for so long that he'd say them that it was a relief they were finally out there.  So while I was scared and sad and heartbroken, I was also relieved and excited and ready to start a new life.  I was shaky with the anticipation and dread of it all; the dichotomy was so strong.  Change is always scary, even when it's good for you. 

In the aftermath of that breakup, my mom called me brave.  Of all the words she's spoken to me, those are the ones I carry with the most pride.  My Momma thinks I'm brave.  Because I moved away from home, across the country, to be with a man I loved...and because I moved back home, across the country, when he no longer loved me.  It would be easy to shrug it off, to diminish the chances I took with both of those moves, to say I'd been foolish, not brave.  Momma is right, though; I was brave.  I can totally do hard things. 

I quit my job this past Friday.  The one I used to love.  The one I'd come to refer to as a "soul-sucking whore".  I'd like to tell you that I was a brave badass and told them all to go fuck themselves before I walked out without warning, but that's not how it went down at all.  Not even a little bit.  The true story is that I started job-hunting back in November.  I created a brand-new badass resume; the benefit of doing all the things for nearly nine years is that it gave me a ridiculous amount of experience and crazy skills in so many different aspects of running a business - I am an absolute rock star on paper.  I went on a few interviews, one of which I bombed spectacularly.  That threw me into a funk for the end of December and most of January, so I stopped job-hunting and started eating instead.  I gained 15 pounds in 4 weeks, and avoided my friends for the better part of two months. I decided I'd stay where I was until annual bonuses came out in March, then I'd start looking again. 

Instead, a man called me in late January.  He said he'd found my resume online - one of the jobs I'd applied to in the thick of my search required creating/uploading your resume to the site, and I'd made it searchable because, you know, why not?  I never expected anything to come of it, and I was completely skeptical of this guy when he called me out of the blue.  But the work was similar to what I've been doing, and he said he could meet my salary requirements, so I agreed to meet him for an interview.  I liked him right away, but I was leery, and still licking my proverbial wounds from my magnificent flop back around the holidays. I asked questions in the interview such as "how often do your employees cry at their desks?" and "what's the worst part of this job?" and "how much time do you require from your people after hours?"  Things I probably never would have said if I'd been courting them, but I'd decided I was all out of fucks and if this guy didn't like me, it was no skin off my hide.  I hadn't gone searching for him, after all.  I didn't follow up with an email or thank-you card; in fact, I didn't even call him back on the day I'd said I would.  But he called me, and wanted to sit down again, so I met him and his right-hand-gal at the local Vietnamese restaurant for lunch one day.  I liked her, and I liked her answers to my crazy questions, specifically the one about crying at your desk - it was as if I'd grown a second head.  Apparently that's not normal stuff in normal jobs?  Who knew?

Less than a week after that lunch meeting, my (now former) boss called me into his office.  A VP had sent out an email (presumably while hung over from last night's scotch binge) that basically said I was incapable of doing any portion of my job correctly or effectively.  He didn't start the email off that way - in a style that is very much his own, he was responding to a problem I'd highlighted on one of his pet projects, and in his efforts to deflect blame, his message devolved into an attack on my professional reputation I've worked tirelessly to build for the last 9 years.  Thankfully, only my boss and direct supervisor were copied.  Thankfully, my boss knew better.  Thankfully, my direct supervisor, when confronted by my boss to discern if there was any truth in the accusations, could not provide a single solitary circumstance in which the VPs words would've been true.  I went home that night determined that I was going to find a way to be gone within a month - I could not work there anymore.  If that drunkard was saying untruths of that level about me in an email to my boss, who was he speaking them to out loud?  He was going to ruin me professionally within the company, and I'd spent too many years killing myself for that place to go out like that. 

The next morning, at 8:30, I received a phone call with a job offer.  With a twelve percent base salary increase.  With monthly bonuses.  Company paid cell phone.  Immediate vacation, insurance, retirement.  I waited until the following Monday before I turned in a four-week notice.  In retrospect, I should've given the assholes two weeks and been done, but I'm too dedicated for my own good, I guess. 

I'm hesitant to use words like Fate or Destiny, but it sure does feel like things in my life have a way of working out with excellent timing.  And I'm not religious, so I don't like to throw around the term Blessed very often, but more and more I find that's the perfect word to describe my life and the things that happen to me.

My divorce from my first husband was finalized September 29, 2006.  Jimi and I started dating less than a month later.  Ten years later, here we are - house, dog, two beautiful people we made with our love for one another.  It's amazing to me how different today was compared to that day a decade ago.  Everything I wanted back then is everything I have now.  My life today is the reason I was able to walk away then - my determination to have THIS life rather than THAT life.  Every tear was worth it; as in childbirth, every wave of pain was worth the life that was born from it. 

I'm so thankful my ex-husband was more brave than I and was able to say those words that set us both free from an unhappy marriage.  I wouldn't have this if he hadn't done that.  And I am so thankful for this life. 

I begin my new career on March 7 - I'm taking this next week to clean my house, declutter my head, have lunch with girlfriends, buy some business casual clothes, and, of course, celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the birth of my beautiful eldest daughter.  It's a celebration, yo! 

Life is awesome.  I can't wait to see what happens next. 

"I'm gonna start blogging again," she said.

Heh.  Famous last words, spoken on this blog no fewer than at least once or twice before, I'm pretty sure.


Guys, I'm on fire.  Not Literally.  If I was literally on fire, I would be stopping, dropping, and rolling.  Swearsies.  My heart is on fire.  That sounds like I have heartburn, which is not the case because I am not pregnant.  I'm not pregnant!  Saying (typing) those words makes me very happy.  What a different world from where I was 5 years ago.  Time changes everything.  Right?  Or do all things stay the same?  Either way, as desperate as I was to be pregnant five years ago is as glad as I am today to not be pregnant. 

What were we talking about?

I'm going to change the world. 

(Save this page to a favorites somewhere.  You'll want to come back to it again one day and you'll be all, "I'll be damned.  She said she was going to do something.  And she did.  Good on her.")

I don't know how just yet.  But I'm going to.  I can feel it.

I imagine my kids will be a bit older when it happens, when it all plays out, when all of my hard work comes to fruition.  I think that's probably the case because, well, I haven't started anything yet.  That's not entirely true; I have a load of towels in the washer.  Towels are not earth shattering or world changing, though.  Maybe they could be for someone who'd never seen a towel before or known the absorbent joys of towels, but I don't think towels are going to be my claim to fame.

How do you want to be remembered?

What did you do today?  If all you were remembered by was what you accomplished today, how would people mourn you? 

I had a really good day today.  I've had a few of them in a row, in fact.  I feel good.  I feel capable.  I feel strong.  The guilt and shame and self-hate are pretty quiet.  The anger isn't flaring as quickly, as easily. 

I'm 35 years old.  When I was 14, I thought I had the whole world figured out.  I continued to believe that as I got older, even as my opinions and experiences changed and grew - each time I learned something new, each time I experienced something I'd never experienced before, I still walked away feeling like I had it all figured out.  I never considered that I don't actually know anything, which is why there are so many new and unique things out there to experience and learn.  Am I making any sense?  Probably not.  That's okay. The point is that i'm finally realizing...what?  My place in the world?  How small I am, how insignificant?  I'm realizing how much I don't know, how much I can never know, and that scares me.  Things like who really shot JFK and did aliens build the pyramids and is God real - those aren't answers I'll get in this lifetime.  And I don't know if I believe there's another lifetime to be had, so that scares me.  I'm scared a lot.  People scare me, mostly.  I'm afraid of the people I love dying.  I'm afraid of people not liking me.  I'm afraid that maybe I'm wrong, that maybe people aren't actually inherently good, that they won't usually do the right thing when they are presented with the opportunity and means to do so. 

I have this theory that if I could just sit down, one on one, with all of the "bad guys" out there, I could explain to them why they should stop being mean and start trying to help.  I could hug them and let them cry out their hurts and sadness and pain, and I could tell them that it's all going to be okay, that we'll start fresh and it will all be just fine.  Everything can be fixed.  I could fix them some vegetable soup and cornbread and a big glass of milk and they could just sit and eat and feel safe and not judged. 

But, you know, reality.  I mean, seriously.  Some of those people don't even think women are human.  And then I get jaded again, because how do you start a dialog with people like that?  And the problem is so deep, I don't know that it can be solved.  That sounds too flip for how grave it is for me to say it.  How to do you fix something so broken? 

Jimi told me early in our relationship that I have a young soul.  It was a polite way of saying I'm naïve, I figured.  I am naïve.  Extremely so.  I want to believe everything you tell me.  I want to judge you on your intentions.  People keep telling me that's a bad idea, it's unsafe.  I was going to agree with them.  But you know what?  It's not always a bad idea, or unsafe.  Sometimes it's what a person needs.  And sometimes it's dumb as shit.  My problem is that I don't have the filter to distinguish between the two.

Hurt people hurt people.  Happy people don't hurt people.  Right?  Is it that simple?

I'm getting too deep.  That's not where I wanted to swim to tonight.  Can we raincheck this discussion for now?  I have other things I wanted to get to.

I think i'm going to run for political office.  Not really.  I would love it, except for all the work that comes along with it.  I'm so lazy.  Seriously.  Or maybe i'm mistaking lazy for tired.  For intellectually unstimulated. 

I can't be a politician because I can't remember anyone's name, and i'm incapable of schmoozing.  Something happened to me along the way, something that broke my confidence.  I suspect it was the deep shame I felt when I miscarried.  That also is not what I came here to discuss.  Why do I keep taking all of these detours?  Raincheck again, please.

I want to help people.  I want to do something that makes peoples' lives better.  It may sound trite, but I genuinely want to win the lottery so I can travel the world doing cool shit while also managing several charitable trusts.

Can I tell you about my day?  This is my blog. Of course I can tell you about my day.  Last night, Geneva pooped on the potty.  (That didn't happen today, but it's my blog, so I can mention it if I want to.  it was the first time.  It's a big stinky deal.)  Then, I worked until the wee hours of the morning to knock out a project i'm pretty sure my boss thought was probably impossible.  His boss emailed me to thank me for my efforts.  And I woke up to an email saying I'm now officially a Starbucks Gold Card Member (may take up to six weeks for actual gold card to arrive with it's balance of $4.59). And then, I came home to a mail that said American Express just upped my limit.  Fuckin' A.  (I had bad credit left over from bad decisions for a pretty good while, so it feels really awesome to have really good credit for a change.  We're considering maxing out everything and "disappearing", but realize that is impossible because we have kids and responsibilities and shit.)  And my husband was nice, and my kids were adorable and sweet, and dinner was good, and I know what I'm wearing to work tomorrow...it was just a really, really, exceptionally good day.  I should've bought a lottery ticket.

Tomorrow, I'm going to change the world.  Or at least get started on figuring out what exactly it is that i'm going to do to change the world.  If I have an extra minute. 

If you have an extra minute, talk to me.  Please?  In the words of RadGuy, UR THOTS?

Balance

I'm trying to identify and confront head-on sources of stress in my life.  In the last week I've been able to, with some pretty deep introspection, narrow down a few of the daily nuances that make me absolutely batshit crazy:

1.  Shoes.  Not being able to find my shoes, not being able to find Geneva's shoes, only being able to find one of the shoes...and don't even let me get started on finding fucking socks that match each other.  It's a Christmas Miracle in July if you can make that shit happen.

2.  Food.  Geneva's Lunch, my lunch, our breakfasts, snacks, morning coffee. Dinner - what are we having for dinner?  All are very important.  All are occasionally missed because I don't have my shit together.

3.  Clothes.  Knowing what I'm going to wear and being able to locate all of the pieces of said outfit.  Wash, Rinse, Repeat for Geneva and Cora. 

Sounds simple enough, right?  Shut up. 

I can recognize how silly and simple that list sounds, but I also know, from living in my daily reality, that those are legitimate, snakes-popping-out-of-my-head crazy-inducing triggers/challenges that can make or break my day before it's really even gotten started. 

I also know how to solve my problems, at least in terms of identifying the solutions - shoes go back in the same place after they come off, food is prepped the night before, laundry is done on weekends and work-week outfits laid out Sunday night.  I've tried.  Oh, how I've tried.  It's not easy being lazy, folks.  When it was just me and Jimi, oh, the lazy times we had.  G came along and required the discipline of every-other-day laundry and regular mealtimes, but she was settling into a pretty good lazy routine too.  Then we added Cora into the mix, and, through no fault of hers, just the pure fact of four people living under one roof, logistics got complicated and started requiring some real planning and execution and follow-through.  Things we're really bad at in the Fowler household.

I was doing great for a minute, though.  When I first went back to work after my maternity leave this last time, I had meal plans planned and prepped Saturday afternoon for the coming week.  Laundry was washed and folded and put away and laid out Sunday night.  Lunches were packed the night before; there was time for breakfast in the mornings before we left the house, rather than grabbing a granola bar on the way out the door.  We knew where our shoes were. 

Those things happened.  They did.  I distinctly remember.  And then we all got sick, and we passed some variety and level of funk around between us for the next few months and it just wasn't easy to keep on top of all of that neatness and organization - it makes everything run so smoothly, but man, it really requires work and staying on top of it.  Or, well, not being completely lazy asses and doing nothing. 

It made me feel better when I learned that there's an actual scientific theory out there that says chaos is the natural order of things - that no matter how nice and neat you organize things, the natural inclination is for those things to become disorganized and messy.  It made me feel like maybe I'm not such a complete failure in life.  Chaos is normal, and expected.  That was long before kids.  It's especially when you have little kids, though, right?  That's what people keep telling me. 

I called a family friend last week, a psychiatrist by trade, and told her that I was pretty sure I was going crazy, and asked her if she could refer me to someone I could talk to.  I don't want any meds or anything, I told her, I just want someone to tell me how to stop being so fucking crazy.  I'd cried the whole way to work that morning.  I was sort of a basket case.  She asked me to explain what was going on - what was my particular flavor of crazy, if you will.  I'm anxious all the time, I feel like I'm constantly going to fuck something up, or like I've already fucked something up and it's going to bite me in the ass.  I can't get my arms around anything, I feel completely overwhelmed and behind at work and at home and I fantasize about burning shit down or quitting my job because then I could start somewhere new and not be behind anymore.  She laughed at me.

"Natalie!  You're not crazy!  You're just a woman!"

dramatic pause

"That's what it is to be a woman in today's fucked up society.  With two small kids and a full time job, of course you're a little crazy."  We can't give enough of ourselves to any one thing to ever feel like we're doing enough or good enough, and then we've given so much of ourselves and our time to those two very important vocations that there's no time or energy left to give to ourselves.  It's a nasty vicious cycle and it can make your brain and your body sick.  She told me how for years she'd held out hope that women could come together, recognizing these truths we all experience every day, and help each other, or at the very least, band together to encourage some positive societal change wherein it was made easier for women to balance these roles.  What she found instead was a bunch of backbiting and judgment. 

Her advice to me was not to seek counsel of a local psychologist - she told me anyone I found locally to talk to would likely be a man, which no ability to understand the perfect storm of emotions i'm experiencing right now, and he'd want to throw a pill at the problem that wouldn't fix my problem.  She told me to hire someone to clean my house, or quit my job, or work part time, or come home and light up a joint to relax after the kids are in bed. 

So those aren't exactly the most feasible options for me, but she got me thinking - what are the sources of my stress?  What makes my day hard? 

I organized my pantry.  I cut up one of those over-the-closet-door shoe holder thingies I never use and put half on the back of the pantry door and filled the pockets with easy-to-grab snacks for us and the kids - fruit, babyfood pouches, granola bars, pretzels, oatmeal packs, fruit snacks.  Now I don't have to dig for nutritious things in the mornings when we're rushing to get out the door  - we have things easily available.  I made a meal plan for the week so we'd come home each night knowing what we're having for dinner and how we're getting it made.  I dug out an old CD rack that is a perfect fit for Geneva's shoes - retraining ourselves to use it is another matter entirely.  Jimi's been staying on top of the kitchen mess and the laundry so we've had things to wear and clean dishes to cook and eat with.  We're off to a good start, I'd say. 

Life is hard and messy and sometimes you just need a good cry and someone to tell you you're not alone, that you're not the only person who's ever gone through this or felt this way.  That you're not crazy.  Not in a "medicate me" sort of way - life is just hard.  And messy.  And chaotic.  Exactly as it's supposed to be.