Riding the Vomit Comet

The problem with going so long without blogging is that I get all tied up in all the things that I want to post about, and then I have a hard time writing anything, because I want to write about everything!

The big event of the weekend with the teen was that I gave him the rules for the summer. Only 4 hours/day on the computer and bedtime at 11 pm. You'd have thought I'd stuck a knife in him and twisted it. He tried strenuously to talk me out of my decisions, arguing like a lawyer about every detail. I kept it simple, though, no exceptions, no complications, just the basics. 4 hours. 11 pm. No exceptions.

He took it very badly, finally grabbing the phone and storming off to his room. I found out later that he took the phone, not to call a friend to commiserate (as I'd assumed,) but to call his mother. He left a short, but very nasty little message on her answering machine, to the effect that she'd thrown him away, didn't love him, had ruined his life, and he hated her.

I just love getting upset emails from her, especially when I have no idea what's going on.

I wanted to punish him, on the grounds that his mother deserves a certain amount of respect from him, no matter what the problems between them. The husband told me to stay out of it though. If he was here, he'd handle it, but at the moment we're just ignoring it.

On the bright side, the baby seems to have figured out Mama and Dada! At any rate, as of this weekend, she will look at me and babble, "mamamamama," and look at her father and babble, "dadadadada," which is good enough for us to declare this the weekend she said her first words!

Oh, and I also bought a car for the husband. We had to have a second car, but he didn't have the time to do it. So, I went to a friend of ours who sells cars and she found us a great one. Not too old, not too expensive, not too many miles, very nice and even pretty. And I handled everything from beginning to end all by myself - test drives, negotiating, finding financing - I feel so adult! I've never done the whole process by myself before. The husband just showed up in time to sign where he was told. Picture me doing a little triumph dance here!

Swoopy feelings all over the place. Too many highs and lows in such a short space of time.

It's here!

As promised, here is my fiction blog, Yet Another Jennifer. I have one short story on there so far. Please feel free to stop by and read. Comments, suggestions, critiques and honest opinions are, of course, always welcome. Especially if you like what you read, wink, wink.

I've been busy working on it to the neglect of this blog, but I'll get back in the swing of things next week, cross my heart.

Oh, and by the way, if you're good at blog templates, please tell me what I'm doing wrong! I can't seem to be able to figure out how to get it right. I know basic html, but the way they've done this template has me stumped.

Daddy's Girl

Blankets are totemic items in our house. Large or small, fuzzy or quilted, designed for winter nights or summer months, each one is coveted, a treasure to be safeguarded.

The toddler is our dragon of the blankets of course. I can't so much as wrap a blanket around the baby without loud cries of, "Too, too!" coming from big sister.

Imbued with this kind of power, blankets are capable of protecting and soothing under even the worst circumstances. With Daddy being so far away lately, they've been in greater demand than ever. It doesn't matter that the thermometer reads "sweltering", I am constantly beseeched for more blankets.

"I cold, Mommy," she'll cry, then without waiting for response repeat, "Mommy, I cold!"

I'll help her wrap up in whichever blanket she's brought to me and she'll be happy for a few minutes. Then she'll kick it off, realize what she's done and start crying for Mommy to come and fix it all.

I wish I could fix the bigger things in her life as easily as I can wrap her in her blankets. She misses her daddy so bitterly.

This move can't happen soon enough.

Well, la-di-dah, ain't I special?

I am now the wife of someone Very Important. The husband was assigned to another area at work, which (while it doesn't mean an actual raise, oh no) does mean he now has much more Important responsibilities.

My mother-in-law was a woman very impressed with social standing. She was a bit of name dropper and never lost an opportunity to give the husband's father a promotion in casual conversation. "My ex-husband, the colonel ..." She would have been delighted with the husband's new job.

In honor of her memory, I will now go practice putting on airs.

The other shoe drops.

Every afternoon when I pick the teen up from the bus stop I ask him, "Do you have any homework?" And almost every day the answer is, "No."

It didn't occur to me to worry. After all he came here late in the school year. It seemed logical that the homework was winding down as the teachers were preparing for summer.

All together now: "SUCKER!"

I heard from the husband at the end of the week. The teen is missing several science homework assignments. The school sent an email to the teen's mom, who forwarded it (with an accompanying upset note) to the husband, who forwarded the whole shebang to me. Now everyone expects me to handle the situation, only it's the end of the school year and hello, it's too late.

Being a stepparent is, in some ways, an awful lot like being a babysitter - except that babysitting pays a lot more. You have no intrinsic right to be a part of that child's life. It doesn't matter how much you love the child, what sacrifices you've made, or even if you've been the child's primary caregiver all her life. You're nothing, because you're not a legally recognized parent.

I can't take the teen to a doctor without a signed form from the husband giving me permission to do so. I can't sign him up for school, because I'm not a parent or guardian. And now, apparently I can't even talk with his teachers. They email his mom, in another state, rather than pick up a phone and call me. I've had a call in to his economics teacher since the middle of the week with no response. I tried to get hold of his science teacher Friday morning, but there's been no response from her either.

If I had only known about this sooner, I might have been able to do something about it, but his finals are this week. He's insisting he hasn't missed anything. His English paper is due this week - the one he's been telling me he was working on. Only he hasn't. So all that has to be done.

I'm so angry with him right now. I feel used and played. He pulled the wool over my eyes without even trying, I was so trusting. Man. What an idiot.

"Dead Inspiration" would make a great title for a murder mystery.

Selected items from putting my name into Googlism:

jennifer is missing (Well, that would explain a lot.)
jennifer is dead (And that would explain even more. No wonder the teen ignores me.)
jennifer is getting (What? WHAT? What am I getting?)
jennifer is getting bike riding lessons (Oh. Well, that's disappointing. I was hoping for money.)
jennifer is right (Of course I am. How can you even question that?)
jennifer is dead inspiration slipping away (I have no idea what that means, which must mean it's terribly deep and beautiful.)
jennifer is trying to determining if this belief holds true for elkhorn slough (Or do they see me as live inspiration?)
jennifer is beautiful but you might consider eating a steak (Um, wow. I don't even know what to say here.)
jennifer is slightly taller (... than your average Jolly Green Giant.)
jennifer is as talented as she is beautiful (Well, if you insist. *simpers* *pauses* Hey! Wait a second ...)
jennifer is taken to a palace (That's what he promised at any rate ...)
jennifer is threatened by a hungry wild rooster (Is that why I keep hearing that faint clucking?)
jennifer is a twenty (Eat your heart out, Bo Derek!)
jennifer is truly one of a kind (And as the joke goes, we'll avoid discussing exactly what kind that is.)
jennifer is actually a minor deity (Surely I'd have an easier time getting help from my family in cleaning the house if that were true!)
jennifer is a goddess (Seriously. The family, housework ... it's just not happening.)
jennifer is a very rare male name (I'll say!)
jennifer is actually more strange to me than love (Well, yeah, after reading all this!)

Intrusive Thoughts

I don't know how old I was the first time it happened, but it was before I was 10, and I think it was sometime after I started grade school. One day I was sitting and thinking about how, even as I moved through space, I was moving through time. In a way, I thought, playing with the emerging concept, it's like there's a very long cord behind me, that traces everywhere I've been. If I could only see it, I would be able to follow every step, every move, since the day I was born.

I sat there, visualizing this cord as a thin thread fastened to my back, an unbreakable track laid down over the years, tracing back and forth, crossing itself, twisting around itself, around me, wrapping around, under and through furniture and buildings, forming knots great and simple as I traced and retraced my steps every day ...

I started to feel uneasy, thinking about that tangle of invisible thread. Knots. That was bad. The thought of knots being created in my invisible cord made my shoulders feel twitchy, bothered me in some deep and previously unnoticed core. I had to do something about it. It was unbearable that there should be knots in my path. I had to fix them. I had to retrace my steps and untangle those knots.

It's called OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I'm lucky. My case is pretty mild, at least I think it is. I consider it mild because I've been able to keep it from interfering with my day to day life too much, without needing medication.

I decided to write about this because I ran across a courageous and compelling blog, My OCD Journal. Zakk does a brilliant job of describing what it's like to have OCD. I've really been enjoying reading it and I've added it to my links. He makes me think about my OCD, not something I normally do. Normally I just grit my teeth and shoulder through it, but he's made me want to write about it.

It's not an easy thing to write about. Like my infertility there's a lot of shame attached to the illness, in my mind. I don't know why. It's a physical illness in both cases. I do what I can to control things, but the existence of my illness is simply beyond my control. Life happens. You do what you can. After all, what's the alternative? Lie down and die? Something in me has never been able to do that - even on those days when I really wanted to just give up, some tiny spark in my gut has forced me up and doing, coping and learning, stubbornly ignoring my shrieks of protest.

The shame and the need to hide the OCD was there almost from the beginning. It didn't take too long before my mother noticed something was wrong. She gave me a funny look one day as I was carefully backing and bending to untie an invisible knot and in a wary tone asked, "What are you doing?"

I realized immediately from the sound of her voice and the expression on her face that what I was doing was not normal. Shame rose up and without thinking I told my first lie about the OCD.

"Nothing."

She accepted my answer but kept looking back at me as she walked slowly from the room. I waited until she couldn't see me to go back to my ritual. From then on I was very careful about how I untangled myself. I turned my rituals into elaborate pieces of misdirection.

* Yawn, stretch, twirl casually 180 degrees.
* Look casually behind me as if looking for something, keep going until I'm facing front again, look bewildered that I didn't see what I was looking for.
* Pretend to be dancing, pirouetting on the balls of my feet.

After a few months of this, I got mad. In a way I can't explain, this had never felt like it was coming from me. Or at least, not the me that made decisions. This was coming from my body. The part of me that thought and chose what to do was being forced into these actions by my body, and that made me angry.

This was my body. I told it what to do, not the other way 'round. I'd had enough and I was taking charge of things again. From then on I would resist the compulsion, the twitchy, distressing, worry, worry, worry feeling. In fact, I would even seek it out, deliberately tangling myself up and then just bear the feeling until it subsided. I was going to show myself who was boss.

It worked. A little. I was able to make the worst of the compulsions go away and I've managed them ever since with that technique. I'll force myself into the discomfort and grit my teeth until it subsides. It's great for dealing with the compulsions.

It doesn't work for obsessions and intrusive thoughts, though. Those I fight with regularly. I distract myself by thinking of a song or getting busy doing something very complicated. It's hardest when I can't do anything like that, when I'm trying to still my mind to fall asleep, or focus my attention on something important. Then the intrusive thoughts flood in and I wind up spending all my energy shuttling them off to the side of my mind, over and over again.

But, that's just life. I'm lucky things aren't much worse. I can even look at this and see how it has helped me be a stronger, better person.

Anway, go read My OCD Journal. You'll find it illuminating.

Sites for the fiction fans out there

I've added a new section to my links: Fiction Blogs. I've run across a few blogs here and there which are exercises in fiction writing. I'm going to start linking to the best of them. I'm planning on starting one of my own, too. I'll let y'all know when I get it up and running.

The teen starts half days tomorrow, before ending the school year. Starting next week I'm going to have to start fighting for the computer again. I have got to find a way to limit his computer gaming, with a minimum of conflict. Given his druthers he'd do nothing else, not even sleep.

In the distance I can see the faint outlines of the corner I'm hoping to turn.

Things finally seem to be coming together, and it's in that release of pressure that I realize how hard I've been working these last few weeks. It's like I've been pulling and tugging, physically dragging this family into a new road, a new place for us. There's been so much to adjust to, and with the husband gone I've been the only person here who could make sure everything happened as it needed to.

I've never before had to maintain this degree of control over myself. The teen is continually poised at the edge of the cliff; the least exhibition of frustration or anger sends him off into reactionary fits of self-defense. If I fail to project complete calm in both tone and body language in every interaction with him and his sisters, he will react with everything from sullen withdrawal to outbursts of rage.

He has pushed and pushed and pushed at me, and I didn't even realize until tonight I was being tested.

Each time we've had a fight, I have taken the time to regain control of my emotions, then insisted on talking calmly with him until we resolved the situation. I have kept insisting that it's OK to be mad at each other and that I still love him. I have also made a point of sincerely apologizing for anything I have needed to apologize for.

The last couple of days, something has changed in him. I don't dare believe that he's turned a corner in trusting me, but he has temporarily stopped trying to push my buttons. He hasn't gone into any diatribes about how mistreated he is and how awful it is to be here, he has actually eaten two dinners in a row without complaining about how awful they are, and he has not only done his homework he did it without needing to be reminding more than about five times. He even responded with a smile to my tactful reminders and was cheerful while he worked on his English paper. Most astonishing of all, he confided in me his concerns about his upcoming Economics final.

Nor is he the only one acting happier. The toddler has suddenly dropped from averaging a temper tantrum once or twice an hour to only three or four a day. She helps me cheerfully with the baby, even trying to share her favorite toys with her little sister in an attempt to calm her down. She's more obedient, and is happy and smiling in a way I haven't seen in months. With her I am daring to hope things might continue to improve, because I think this is developmental.

We've got a long way to go yet, but I think, maybe, we're starting to gel. (Now we just need to survive the move, the new home, the new church, the new school, the new neighbors ...)

I'm feeling a little bit triumphant right now.

E I E I O

Old McDonald had a dinosaur
E I E I O
And on his farm he had a dinosaur
E I E I O
With a dinosaur here and a dinosaur there
E I E I O

Dinosaur fever has hit the toddler. She was singing this a few minutes ago, playing with the sand toys I just bought her, the bucket over her head.

I blame Barney.

More From Yesterday

I just wasn't in the mood to finish this last night, so here's the second half of my last post.

Five Items I Have Brand Loyalty To:
- Cascade Complete
- Pampers
- Tabasco
- OxiClean
- Store Brand

Five Snacks I Enjoy:
- Popcorn
- Tortilla chips
- Chocolate chip cookies and milk
- Ice cream cone
- Egg salad on Saltines

Five Songs I Know all the Words to, Even Without the Music:
- Under African Skies
- Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
- The Rose
- Calling America
- All the Pretty Little Horses

Five Things I Would Buy With $1000:
- A professional quality digital camera
- My own computer
- A complete makeover - hair, clothes, makeup, gym membership
- New furniture
- Wood working equipment

Top Five Locations I'd Like to Run Away To:
- Australia
- Hawaii
- My mother's house
- Upper New York state
- Outer space

Five Bad Habits I Have:
- Cracking my knuckles
- Jumping to conclusions
- Reading when I have things to do
- Impulse buying
- Procrastinating things I don't want to do

Five Things I Would Never Wear:
- Halter tops
- Daisy Dukes
- Knee-high high-heel boots
- A bikini
- A tongue stud

Five T.V. Shows I Like:
- Law & Order
- CSI
- Stargate: SG1
- JAG
- Good Eats

Five Places I've Lived:
- Oregon
- Washington
- Idaho
- Wyoming
- Australia

My Five Biggest Worries At the Moment:
- Finding affordable housing
- Packing all our belongings
- Buying a good car
- Having the kids taken away because I'm a bad mother/housekeeper/cook/human being
- Short term finances

My Five Biggest Joys at the Moment:
- My children
- My husband
- We're moving
- I'm decluttering
- Things are looking pretty good for our future

Remembering When

From Dana and AGK:

10 Years Ago, I...
- Thought I might never get married
- Was back in college, working toward becoming a research psychologist
- Watched my parents get divorced
- Started feeling like something had gone wrong inside my body

5 Years Ago, I...
- Was finally diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
- Had a doctor tell me I might never conceive a child
- Started taking fertility drugs

2 Years Ago, I...
- Was a new mother
- Was the thinnest I'd been in 15 years
- Was still not sleeping through the night

1 Year Ago, I...
- Was pregnant with my second child
- Thought the husband's job would last
- Thought I would live in this house forever

Yesterday, I...
- Drove the teen to and from the bus stop
- Was too tired to cook
- Bought fast food for everyone's dinner and took the kids to a play area

Today, I...
- Drove the teen to and from the bus stop
- Made a healthy salad for dinner to atone for last night's calorie-fest
- Packed several boxes

Tomorrow, I...
- Teen/bus. Again.
- Might go hang out at the park, with some friends from church and their children
- Need to do some laundry, mop the kitchen floor, vacuum the carpet and make the beds

Packing Up

I definitely can't miss a night's sleep easily anymore. Which can be good. Last night it was. I was so exhausted that I slept through most of the night in spite of everything. I'm still exhausted, but not as much of a mess as two sleepless nights in a row would have made me.

A friend gave me a big ol' package of Sharpies today, all different colors. They're supposed to make packing more fun. I should think so! I dearly love pens and getting these just really made my day.

I'm making steady progress on the packing, but I don't have the time to declutter as I go along anymore. I started just shoveling things into boxes today. It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate just by staying in one place for a few years.

It's starting to hit me that we're leaving here and I'm feeling sadder than I expected. I never cared for this house. The husband owned it when we got married. I would never have chosen something like this place. But I've never lived anywhere as long as this. We spent our first year of marriage here, struggled to have children here, brought our two daughters home to this house. It's not what I would have chosen, but it's familiar and there are dear memories here. I'll miss that about living here.

I won't miss all the memories from his previous marriage, though. Yeah. That's what I need to think about. All of a sudden I'm excited to get out of here again.

One Baby Discovers Another

The baby has discovered her big sister's baby doll and is enraptured. Every chance she gets she is playing with the doll, chewing on its bald head or grasping it by the arms and studying it, not to mention flopping it about vigorously. It's great fun to watch and my new way to keep her reliably entertained.

The toddler thinks this is awful. She'll tolerate the baby playing with the doll for only a few minutes. Then she'll grab her toy away from her sister, shrieking, "My baby, my baby!"

Which means it's my reliable entertainment only when the toddler is asleep. But hey, if one's sleeping and the other is busy playing, life is good.

The baby also has been practicing squatting. Her balance has improved to the point that the other night, while standing holding onto my knee for support, she suddenly let go of my knee and lowered herself to a squat with just her own sense of balance keeping her from falling. She wound up sitting down very gracefully, with no idea of the huge leap she'd just taken. It was all very exciting for Mommy, although I was sad that the husband wasn't here to enjoy it.

Told the husband about last night; he was suitably concerned, though harried-sounding. (This is a big week at work; lots of training going on that he's in charge of ensuring goes well.) I've taken precautions to make myself feel safer, although we'll see how I feel when it's time to close my eyes and go to sleep. I didn't get much sleep last night, and what sleep I did get was done holding onto the phone, my finger glued to the 9 of 911 even while I was out.

I find it interesting how I'd feel so much better if the husband was here. After all, the teen is bigger than his father, not just in weight, but height and breadth. But then, there's a big difference between an experienced adult in his prime, and an inexperienced boy. The teen will be quite a man when he grows up, but for now he's still just a child who I am responsible for protecting, not the other way around.

So I'll sleep with the phone again tonight and buy more Mountain Dew tomorrow. Unless someone can recommend another soft drink with even more caffeine?

Scary Night

Finding a house has been put on hold for another week, as the husband is much too busy at work, he tells me, to do any house hunting.

My patience with his procrastination just ran out, though. The police just left. Someone tried to break into our house.

The baby woke up just as I was heading to bed. Naturally she was wide awake and wanted to play. So, holding her in my arms in the vain hope that she would get so comfy she'd start feeling tired again, I headed to the kitchen to get myself a glass of water.

I was standing by the fridge, looking right at the kitchen door when the handle started to turn and someone pushed inward very gently until the lock stopped the knob from turning anymore.

My heart about stopped. I have never grabbed a phone faster in my life. Thank goodness for 911 because I was too frightened to remember anything more complicated right then.

The dispatcher stayed on the line with me until the police got there. Two cars, which I found very comforting. Thank goodness for dedicated police officers, too. While I know where the husband's gun is and I know how to shoot, I don't ever want to have to defend myself. Hitting a target at a gun range is a far cry from dealing with, say, a home invasion.

I feel reasonably safe now. I would think seeing the police there would scare any would-be burglar/attacker away. I think I'll sleep with the bedroom light on, though, and the living room, kitchen and dining room lights, too. Just to be on the safe side.

I do think that when the husband hears about this, during tomorrow's morning phone call, that it just might light a fire under him about getting us all reunited.

I want my husband home.

Mother's Day

I had this whole long post about today, and then soemthing weird happened and all of a sudden I was looking at a old draft instead of what I'd just written.

I hate losing something I've just finished polishing up.

I made the teen write to his mom today. I threatened to take the computer away for a week if he didn't at least send her an email. So, after much pouting and sulking and complaining, he wrote to her. I don't know if I did the right thing. I just muddled through, like I do with most of life it seems. I just couldn't bear the thought of her being alone and sad on Mother's Day because her son was too busy being angry to think outside of himself. I hope someday he'll think back on this and be glad I forced the issue. I hope he doesn't think back on it from a therapist's office, while talking about how I was the worst thing to ever happen to him.

Everbody's sick, but getting better. I'm not sure how to handle the teen staying home from school. I've never had to do this before! He called home from school Thursday to come and get him, so that's a day and a half. He said tonight he still feels crummy, but I hate to think of him missing another day. Not to mention I have a healthy mistrust of his report of his symptoms. He makes it sound like he's about to die, but he looks just fine, and certainly was well enough to want to stay on the computer all day.

Besides, I remember when I was a kid trying to get out of school.

The baby has finally figured out that food isn't just for the fun of new sensations. She's actually eating to satiate her hunger, now.

And now she's crying, so I'll go and try to get her back to sleep.

Priorities

Ran into this question on Lisa's and Linda's blogs, and from there to Shelley.

"You have to leave. You have roughly an hour to get your butt in gear, and you have to travel light. Not including people and pets, or survival items (i.e. food, water) what three things would you take with you?"

Since we live in hurricane country, we have a disaster evacuation plan all ready to go and non-essentials are covered as well as emergency supplies.

1. Get kids and pets to the gassed up car.
2. Grab the four backpacks that hold our 3 day evacuation kits: clothes, food, water, personal care, toys and first aid for each person. I also have some cash in the parents' packs.
3. Grab the small suitcase where we store family photos and important papers.

Once you have a disaster kit set up, it's easy to maintain. You just need to review the contents once a year and replace the old food and water with new. Make sure the clothes in there fit the kids (you can pick up clothes at yard sales or thrift shops just for these kits.) Check expirations on any medication and replace as necessary. I got the backpacks at yard sales and a lot of the personal care/first aid stuff in the sample/travel section at Walmart.

I keep everything in a corner of the family room, out of sight behind a chair, during the heart of the hurricane season. The rest of the year I keep them in our bedroom closet (we have a nice big one in this house.) If there was a fire, a tornado, a tree caved in our roof or any other "get out of the house quick!" type of emergency we could be out in minutes at most, seconds if necessary.

The Red Cross has a whole section of their site on disaster preparedness. Check it out at their Family Disaster Planning and Disaster Supplies Kit pages. I would strongly urge even those of you who don't live in areas where you anticipate hurricanes or earthquakes or other natural disasters to put together something like this. It's easy and the peace of mind is worth it.

I want to put together a pack to keep in the car in case something happens and we break down on the side of the road - food and water for the kids, toys, diapers, blankets, etc. I also need to put together something for the teen now that he's here. We shouldn't have to worry about hurricanes in our new home, but I'm sure there will be something. My mother in the West lives with the possibility of brush fires every summer; some areas have earthquakes, some have blizzards, some have floods. There's always something you need to watch out for.

Getting back to the original question though, the only thing after living beings and survival items that I'd grab would be the photos and papers. I archive our computer files online so I don't need to worry about that. Anything else in the house would just have to be left behind. I'd be sad to lose things like my wedding dress, the girls' blessing gown, my wedding night negligee (hmmm, what does it say about me that it's clothes I think of as mementos?) but, oh well. I can't take everything. I have the memories of the important things and everything else can be replaced.

Spring = Strawberries

The girls and I picked strawberries yesterday morning. It was a spur of the moment decision. The toddler started fussing and whining on our way home from dropping off the teen at his bus stop. We'd been planning on going berry picking anyway, so, prompted by desperation, I decided to do it right then if it could distract her from her whining.

It worked out as well as I'd hoped. She ran wildly up and down the rows, picking strawberries and eating them. I picked strawberries and put them in the basket. The baby grabbed at leaves and tried to get them into her mouth before Mommy took them away. She also grunted a lot as Mommy shifted her up, down and sideways. Picking berries while holding a baby on one hip is not the least complicated thing I've ever done! The only snag came when I had to haul her kicking and screaming back into the car. There was room to run, there were strawberries to eat, there was a friendly dog to pet - what more could a little girl ask for? So why go home? Such a mean mommy.

After gorging ourselves on berries all day long, we wound up having pancakes with strawberries on top for dinner. Not the healthiest thing I've ever made them, but oh, was it good! And what's the point of living healthily if it means you can't enjoy the occasional indulgence?

We won't be going back Saturday for more strawberries as originally planned though. Everybody is coming down sick again. Thank goodness it's the end of the week and the husband is coming home. Not the funnest way to spend the weekend with his family, but much easier for me than trying to cope with three sick kids while I'm sick myself. Poor husband.

About Nothing

I am feeling so uninspired this week. I just can't think of anything to say. It's very annoying. I haven't felt like this in months. Blogging has been great for inspiring me with ideas. I'm practically overflowing with inspiration, in my fiction as well as blogging. But not the last couple of days.

It's not all bad. You wouldn't believe the amount of cleaning I've gotten done the last couple of days, and several boxes packed as well. I bought a new mop this last weekend and I love it. I finally have a mop that will get this blasted kitchen floor clean. The color and texture are such that I've always had to get on my hands and knees and scrub it with a brush. This mop, with a nice scrubby sponge, gets it clean enough without that. Just in time to move. Oh well.

The baby is wide awake and looking to stay that way. She's playing on the floor while I watch TV and try to think of something to say. Frequency is on again (I really have to get my own copy of that movie.)

The teen had a doctor appointment today, so I kept him home from school. Not something I'd normally do, but the husband made the appointment for the middle of the day. It's an hour drive out to the private school the teen's mom put him in. Not an issue normally, because they have a bus that stops only 20 minutes away. But to pick him up? The girls would have been in the car at least 4 hours, just for the appointment, not counting getting home and then turning around to pick him up at the bus stop. So I kept him home. I'll have to remember to write a note for him to take to school tomorrow. I made sure to schedule the next appointment for the late afternoon (much to his disappointment. He thought this was great!)

He is noticeably losing weight now. I'm going to have to buy new clothes for him. I'm so excited and happy. I'm not sure he realizes though. He hasn't said anything, and I don't want to make him uncomfortable by saying anything. I haven't made a big deal about his weight, just made sure to keep candy and soda out of the house and tried to make sure dinners were healthy. The only thing that was an obvious weight loss tactic was getting rid of the sugar.

The baby started fussing. It isn't easy, nursing the baby and typing. I can type one-handed no problem (and not too slow either) but she keeps kicking my typing arm. Maybe she'll fall asleep soon.

I'd rather have a beautiful body ...

Tell you what, I'll trade the empathic nature for a set of killer abs, hmm? Oh, and throw in some thighs suitable for a skirtless swimsuit. New triceps (the current pair has started the beginnings of that old lady flag waving routine), a trimmer jawline, and, well, heck. Just make me 19 again, OK? I'll throw in the beautiful mind to sweeten the deal, but hurry it up. Swimsuit season is upon us and I'm not getting any better-looking.

Your True Nature by llScorpiusll
Username
The quality that most appeals to you:	Spiritual Advancement
In a survival situation, you:	Scream for help
Your hidden talent is:	A beautiful mind
Your gift is:	Cunning
In groups, you:	Don't fit in
Your best quality is:	Your empathic nature
Your weakness is:	Your lack of focus
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