Hope

Ever have a song in your head that just keeps repeating?

Yeah. That's me today...



Of course, if it had to be any song, I'm glad it's this one. Can't quite decide if it's a sweetly sad song or sadly sweet song... Seeing as how my mood after listening to it is never the same as the time before, I do believe that there are several messages I get out of it.

Hope you are filled with hope today. Hope you had at least one brilliantly beautiful moment where you said "Yes! This. This is why I am on Earth. This is fabulous and amazing and I am grateful and awed by the chance I have to live even one day of this life."

Being thankful

*
Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope your Thanksgiving was fully of family...

young and old...Hope you have a warm and safe home to sleep at night, with plenty to eat (including stolen candy!),

and someone who loves you.


*Like my shirt? It's the one from eShakti and I have the gift code for $20 for everyone on my review site!

3 Strikes...

My daughter is lucky to be alive.

After all, what other mother do you know who, after spending all morning in bed with a throbbing headache, would allow her to continue on after everything she's accomplished this morning?

I know, I know, you're picturing her face, and thinking "What could that angel possibly do wrong?"(Disclaimer: She dresses herself...)

Heh.

10 am: Justin stomps upstairs and flings the Xbox remote control onto the bed beside me and my pile of afghans.

"Just look what she did! SHE BIT THE CONTROLLER!"

Yep. Sure enough, there was a bit of the toggle-thingy missing in the shape of her 4-year-old teeth. Corinne was summoned, confessed, and was sent to her room. I reminded everyone that my head HURT and to please, please, please fend for yourself downstairs and eat SOMEthing that isn't messy or too sugary while I waited for my Dayquil* to have some effect.

12:30ish: Evan's friend comes over and I say he can come in as long as they continue to not mess with me upstairs. My headache has NOT abated, and I am worried that I am starting to get really sick as I'm broiling in my bedroom. I take some more DayQuil and try to watch something quiet on tv in my bedroom when I hear Evan's buddy say,

"Why is there marker all over the piano?"

I hazily flew down the stairs to confirm the disaster and found green marker stripes on every single white key of my great-aunt's piano. Holding my head (so that I didn't swat her bottom) I shrieked at her to "GO TO HER ROOM again!!" She sobbed and wailed her apologies. Whatever. I have only a few nice things in my home!! NOT the piano!!

(Thankfully, it was one of the washable markers, and not the Sharpies. The piano keys were easily cleaned and I made sure to bring a steaming cup of coffee upstairs to my room with me, hoping that the caffeine would ease the pain.)

2:00: Patrick finally arrives home with liquid Tylenol and I trudge downstairs, slam the dosage and take in the carnage of the house. Ugh. Dishes and spilled pink milk and muddy footprints and markers on the table... Evan and Corinne headed out into the cold rain to play and I put on a show of cleaning the kitchen (i.e. I loaded the dishwasher). By this time, I was really getting worried about how hot I was getting. Sick just in time for Thanksgiving! Fabulous. I decided to just take it easy and sit down at the table with a glass of water. As I passed the furnace vent, I got blasted with HOT air...

Hmmmm... I've been a mother for 10 years. I know by now to investigate a mystery a little further....

"WHO turned the furnace up to 75 degrees?!? Corinne??!?? Did you push the buttons by the computer???"**

God help me. GOD HELP ME. She is a female Dennis the Menace. She is precious and joyful and curious and uninhibited and she is going to be the death of me.



*All I have in the house cuz I can't swallow pills.
**I AM grateful that I am not as sick as I thought, though.***
*** Or going through "the change" at an early age.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For EVERYone!

I love receiving and reviewing products on my review site. I LOVE it. Really. But one of the best parts of it is that I also get to pass along free stuff to YOU guys, too. And I have a REALLY fabulous product for you to check out and benefit from! I swear, this is not one you'll want to miss!!

100 Word Challenge

My first attempt at a 1-word prompt. Let's see how this goes, shall we?

Velvet Verbosity's word for this week:

~Give~


Once tender and soft,
now calloused and thin,
I give you my skin as I scour your
dishes,
floors,
and muddy clothes.

Once streaked with red and styled with care,
now streaked with white
and split at the ends,
I give you my hair as salon money is saved for your
favorite books,
shoes that fit only briefly,
and extra cheese pizza.

Once saved for lengthy, pulse-pounding stares across smoke-filled rooms,
now saved for pistaschio-flavored kisses over Lego-strewn floors,
I give you my heart.
Every ounce of my love,
Every bit of my hopes,
rest within your 6 sticky hands...

Can you feel it Mr. Crabs? Can you feel it? *

I can feel it. Can you? That beginning of anticipation for the holidays? The expectation of how fabulous and wonderful it will all be? The children will be joyful and grateful for the lovingly chosen gifts their parents have managed to purchase! Cookies will be baked while they press their noses to the frosty windows, eyes upturned to the sky, wondering at how a reindeer can fly! The weather will be crisp and cool, with lovely clumps of fluffy snowflakes falling on the ground. Not a trace of ice or brutal wind! No, the weather will be more than agreeable as every family gathering includes delicious (yet easily prepared!) meals ending in carols sung around the piano while the fire crackles in the fireplace. There will be no tears over a toy not received! The lack of sleep and high expectations won't backfire into a silly argument over how to discipline a whining child! The smoke alarm shall never break the rhythm of Bing Crosby's solo. No dogs or toddlers will spill milk/pop/water/etc. all over the pergo flooring, causing grandparents or cousins to experience a one-socked death skate into the dessert table.

Nope! None of that.

Of course, if any of the above does take shape this holiday season, I hope that I am able to step back and laugh and remember it all. I hope that the craziness that inevitably accompanies any holiday only adds to our memories. I know that it's actually the wildest aspects of a Thanksgiving or Christmas gathering that are the parts we remember the fondest.

What's the wildest that's ever happened at your family's parties?

* I know that I'm not the only parent to recite this phrase over and over and over again. Right?

Just Another Sunday Fluff Post

For some reason, the temperature outside is 64 or so with complete sunshine and not a single bit of chilly wind. Knowing that the forecast calls for potential snow by Thursday, I literally shoved the kids outside to enjoy this possible last chance at a beautiful day. I always chuckle at the thought that 64 would be considered cool in Florida right now, and a cause for people to close their windows and pull out the long sleeves but in Illinois in November? We have flung open our doors and are wearing t-shirts. We're cruising with the windows down and staring directly into the sun to soak up this treasured bit of vitamin D.
~~~
I had the opportunity to drive in my van in absolute silence for an hour yesterday morning. (Thank you, amateur thief!) Is it just me, or does your mind think in conversations, stories, and blog posts? Mine always has, but I never had anywhere to write them down. Now that I have an outlet? Those brilliant, Pullitzer-prize-worthy stories and ideas simply vanish before I can get a pencil or keyboard in my hands. Honestly, we should all pause in silence and mourn the loss of such literary masterpieces...

.....

Moving on!

Seeing as how this post won't win any awards, I am signing off-line for now with hopes of checking in on my lovely list of blogs tonight. Let me know if there are any posts I should check in on, as I actually Marked All As Read last night. Yes. Yes, I did. Peace Out.

Ninjas and Pilgrims and Native Americans, Oh my!

This is what I've been doing instead of commenting on your blog.... Am I forgiven?

Working on it.

Ooooohhh boy. I am desperately trying to be still and just breathe this morning. It's pretty freakin hard when your day starts out with enormous boulders being dropped in your "bathtub." But I'm breathing and looking at my kids and breathing and trying to be still...

A joyful picture from just a few days ago. I'm going to reach that feeling again, today. Even if just for a short while. I WILL radiate some freaking joy, damnit.

On stilling my own waters...

Recently, Oprah told Ellen that she "radiated joy."

This struck me. It has stuck with me for many days...

I want to radiate joy. I want everyone to see the happiness that surrounds me.

I want to focus on the positives of my life to the extent that the people within my vicinity can honestly feel the peace and love oozing from my pores.

I spent an hour in the slowly cooling bathtub yesterday, submerged to my eyeballs in steaming hot water, only moving my mind. The water was perfectly still until my heaving sobs would send ripples to the tub's edges and back again. My problems, like the water, are merely ripples. They can cause huge waves to upset my entire life if I let my emotions get carried away. Or I can choose to be restful and quiet. I can choose to inhale and hold my breath when I feel like screaming. I can choose to stop all of my tedious chores and simply BE. Breathing, living, dying, feeling... If I can only hold still long enough, maybe the ripples will fade away, and all that will be left will be me in a tub of soapy water, holding my breath and closing my eyes. Maybe if I can just still the waves caused by my own distress, then the random splashes from the outside world won't take quite so long to cease...


I don't want to ignore the negatives. I'm not talking about complete denial of the tragedies of life and the fragility of every delicate thread that holds together the fabric of my life. What I want is to get back to the daily acknowledgment that BECAUSE life is so impermanent, I must treasure what is before me, while it still exists. I was there once. I know it's just beyond my reach right now. Or just within it, and I haven't been brave enough to release what I know and understand so that I can grasp the next rung. After all, you can't climb the monkey bars without first letting go of the bar you're on...

And so I sit here, running between my computer with Jason Mraz in the background and my frying pan where the fish is crackling. My children are drooling for dinner and Patrick may just get to eat it with us tonight. I am surrounded by the sounds and smells of a family that is not perfect but is constantly trying, trying, perpetually trying to be better.

Excuses, excuses...

Holy cow. Has it really been since Tuesday that I posted last? Huh. Imagine that.

I HAVE posted on my review blog, though. Check it out. We saw some dogs and people getting stabbed. You can, too!

I also wrote a half-post about hanging out with Napwarden, but I got distracted by something shiny somewhere between "writing" and "posting" and the sad little post sits all by itself, awaiting my expert editing skills.

I've been babysitting a little every day for about 2 hours, which falls right after homeschooling the kids. The extra money is FABULOUS and the fact that I'm keeping my house clean for a baby again means that I'm, well, actually CLEANING MY HOUSE. HuzzAH. However, those 2 hours where I'm playing with the little squirt are usually when I would let the kids zone out with tv or video games while I surfed the web and crafted my nuggets of wisdom on this lil ole blogspace. I'm guessing you can see my dilemma, nu?

And so, here I sit. 9 pm on a Friday night. A bottle of wine calling my name. A speech meet to judge at 7 am (WAaaaaHHHHhhhh!!!) and no time to pretend to be a writer on my slightly abused blog. Instead, can I tempt you with a video of my children at the circus? And have you entered my giveaway?

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This is not a request for porn. I MEAN IT.

Should I be worried that my 4 year old daughter can tell that I am wearing lipstick, simply from its scent, when I lean over her head from behind to brush her hair?

"Ooh! Mommy! You're wearing lipstick! Can I have some, too?!?"

And then Patrick inquires, with a puzzled look on his face,

"You're wearing lipstick? What's with all the make up lately?"

And by "All the makeup lately" he means that I have washed my face every day and applied a bare minimum to cover any pimples or paleness before the little boy I babysit arrives around 1:30.

Which is more concerning? The amazing make-up sensing abilities of Corinne, or the fact that a little glossy lipstick and blush causes Patrick to be alarmed? I'm sure he was picturing me primping and preening for some random guy (I DO get a lot of UPS deliveries for reviews...) and the words "lipstick" and "showered" *falling in 2 consecutive days caused a few red flags to go up. I should be flattered, right? Because this is how I look on my "made-up days" at home:


I KNOW. The hotness is frying the circuits on MY computer, TOO! Sorry bout that.

Also? When trying to take a picture of yourself? It is advisable that you stop after 1 or 2. Otherwise, THIS is what tends to occur as a result...

What? It's just me? I'm the oooonly one who does this? As if. Come on. FESS UP. Show me your weirdest pics. (But this? This is not a request for nakey nakey shots. Those? Those you can send to my email). ***

*By showered 2 consecutive days, I mean that I managed to wipe the necessary parts of my body with a wet washcloth on one of those days.**

**Don't judge me.

*** please don't send them to my email.

Though, I WAS tired of dancing, Elton John was not.

Shit. I had no idea! I was wrong, wrong, wrong. For years and years, countless loved ones had to endure its oblivious massacre at my hands, and I APOLOGIZE.

Dear loved ones? Do you hear me? I apologize.

Because, apparently, it's not "Hold me close, I'm tired of dancing..."


Who knew?!?

That's it. 1:48 am and I'm posting my faulty lyric skills?

Peace out.

Peee-youuuu

There isn't any other way to wake up than to the sweet cuddles and kisses of your 4 year old daughter. She stroked my face and kissed my eyebrows and I sighed happily and gave her a kiss back. She snuggled down onto my shoulder and squeezed me tightly. And then, ever so softly, and with the kindest of voices, she whispered this advice to me:

"Hey Mommy? When you wake up and get out of bed? You should get right into the shower, ok?"

Ahem.

Nothing like sweetly being told you STINK by your preschooler at 7 am...

I don't think I've ever laughed so hard. Especially since, well... she was right!
Have a good weekend. Be sure to bathe often.

When I get down, I bake a pie. And eat the #$@% out of it...

Yes. That is a heart on top of an apple pie. Yes. I peeled every apple, sliced them with Justin, made the crust myself and baked it until the house smelled divine. Yes. It tastes AWESOME. And yes; it certainly helped me feel a little better...

I'm happy to say that I was busy today. Too busy to be depressed. Busy taking care of a little boy who will be here for 2 hours a day while his parents are between shifts. I think that this little bit of money and little bit of routine will be really good for me (and the family). I'm hoping, at least. Plus, he's only one year old! There's nothing sweeter than a baby that age. It should be just enough baby time in the house to get rid of any baby longings I may be having. Not that I'm having any. At all. But, well. You know.

(Ok, ok. A TINY BIT OF ME wants another baby. Probably the tiny bit that will ALWAYS want another baby. But that tiny little bit will just have to suck it up and get over itself because we are DONE.)

So, a little extra cash for food and a little extra time playing with a cute little baby. Sounds like a good deal...
~~~~

Hey, if anyone knows who the idiot is who stole the front of my cd player out of my van, please pass along my congratulations on being an IDIOT because they didn't take ALL of the stereo, just the facing. Which sucks for me because I can't play any music or tell what time it is. But it sucks for the thief as well because they can't EITHER. Also, thanks for picking on the family that can barely afford FOOD. I certainly hope you didn't steal from us to pay for an operation or something because you won't get ANY MONEY for simply the facing, you IDIOT.

It's pretty pathetic to be a criminal. But it's downright embarrassing to be a STUPID ONE.
~~~

Don't forget to enter to win my Bonefish Grill giveaway and BeiBambini baby clothes giveaway! I'll pick the winners after 12 noon on Friday and anounce ASAP. Good luck to all!

My apologies

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I'm not what you expected.
I'm sorry my emotions don't fit with your plans.
I'm sorry I can't make-believe all the time...
I'm sorry I expect too much
too quickly
too often...
I'm sorry my heart can't be tucked away
underneath unpaid bills and ragged movie stubs...
That my corners aren't neat and sweet...
That my font is blurry,
that my ink is low...

Because
Sometimes?
Sometimes life is twisty and curvy and filled with dotted lines.
Sometimes my heart is conflicted and bleeding and held together
with scotch tape and coffee breaks.
Sometimes the solution isn't black and white.

When did Life become a freakin Connect-the-Dot puzzle?
And when did it become so hard to remember what number is next?

Do you ever find yourself living a stage of your life
that you know will be a period you repeatedly reflect upon
when your gray hairs outnumber the brown?
Do you ever fear that you will harbor regrets
over chances not taken
and dreams not followed?

Do you ever stare at the silhouettes
cast upon your curtains
and see the faces of those you love?
Do you see them wondering why you wonder?
Why you evaluate and contemplate?
Do you see them wondering why this can't be enough for you?


You know what? I hesitate to post this. I hesitate because I wonder at the response. I hesitate because, though I want this for myself and my own memories, so that I don't forget or sugar-coat different periods in my life, I know that people will think what they want about what I write. And right now? I don't know that I want to hear it. My therapy is my blog. My writing may not be brilliant, unique or even moderately good, but it's MINE. And I need it. And it's REAL.

And so I hit publish.

Drinking Shiraz with a Walrus...

Oh how I long for less and more and less and more...

Less...

stress
responsibilities
debt
confusion
gray hair
booty


More...

freedom
time
sleep
money
gratitude
peace
boobs

Feeling especially low right now. Why? Everyone is home. We've eaten. I even have a glass of wine (though it's red instead of white which is fine and I'm not complaining but, well. It's red.) (But thank you honey! It's the thought that counts!) My family's in the other room and I want to go be with them but I don't want anyone to ask me to do anything or find anything or wipe/switch/fix anything. I just want. To. Be. Still.

I finished a painting for my mom today. It's small and I'm sure she'll appreciate it and the effort it took but when I stepped back and evaluated it, all I could see were the colors that weren't rich enough, shapes that weren't sharp enough, and the way it looks as though a 12 year old did it. Which would be fine if that were my intention which, sadly, it was not. So. Merry Christmas, eh? So much for making gifts and trying to use what I have available to let people know I love and appreciate them, even though I can't purchase anything for them.

Damn. So much for following my desire to be grateful for what I've got, eh? This usually happens to me. I think I post overtly grateful, "I'm gonna make the best of this situation", Suzy Sunshine posts when I'm on the verge of crashing into a pit of self-pity. I do believe it's my last-ditch attempt to pull myself away from the pathetic mess that I can sense is on the horizon.

I am he is you are he is you are me and we are all together...


Yeah. That about sums up my brain and is playing on Across the Universe in the other room. I best go watch it with my family and try to force this low the hell out of my head....

You know you've been blogging a long time when you go to put in a title and it's already been used... more than once.

There's nothing quite like a children's party. Especially once your kids have grown to the point that you no longer have to scan every square inch for choking hazards and electrical outlets. When the offspring can disappear into the rooms of a friend's home the moment you arrive and you aren't TERRIBLY concerned that they'll do more damage to themselves than they might to the house? When you can crack open a wine cooler or beer and know that no one's going to look funny at the mommy drinking booze while rocking a baby? Ahhh... It's heavenly. There definitely are a FEW advantages to this whole "older kid" parenting gig.
It's amazing to me that so many little boys with light sabers, ninja swords and Nerf guns can play for more than 8 hours straight without any permanent injuries to themselves or the battlefield filled with glasses of pop and plates of chocolate cake. Thankfully, yesterday's birthday party/Halloween party at our friend's home went off without a hitch. Though every child was amply sugared up (can we say birthday cake AND Halloween candy sloshing around in a belly full of Sprite and Coke?), no one had a melt down that sticks out in my head which means that no one had a melt down at all. Cool how memory works like that, eh?


Hmmmm. I forgot to post this yesterday! Oops. Don't forget I that I have 2 giveaways on my Review blog! Free food and free baby clothes!