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 |  My American Notebooks |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** When Nathaniel Hawthorne was writing, he kept a series of journals, The American Notebooks. They were part daily journal, part diary, but mostly a place for him to jot down and try out bits of writing he hadn't a full venue for yet. He kept character sketches, odd bits of conversation, and observances he wanted to remember for future writings in his notebooks. This, then, is my place for odd bits I want to remember. When you read this, keep in mind, you are rummaging through my mental storehouse. Check out:
And don't forget to vote for your favorite blogger each month. 
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| Hmmm. Sundry folk have been rummaging around in the basement of my portfolio digging up old groups I've started and discarded along my travels.  Lately the only thing I've been doing is adding new blog entries, which take care of themselves, and very occasionally adding new flash pieces. I have a fairly good set of folders set up for my smaller fiction, so those just have to be sorted accordingly as I write them. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. Unfortunately, the rest of my port is stale and unused. Like a bread drawer with most of its contents past their prime.  They are fabulous groups and I don't really want to delete them or even just make them private. I feel that if someone responsible *cough cough* (not me!) would take them over, they'd be wonderful little groups. I could be an irresponsible member and drop in as time permits. Like I do with the rest of the groups I belong to here.  Where does one go to adopt out one's gently used but still serviceable groups? I suppose that I could send out a general email to the group members and ask them about it. I'd be willing to pay any fees required. I just don't want my ideas to die. So to advertise them here first to any one who wants them:
and
With a little love, these could be really good groups. Let me know. |
That's right. It's National Condom Week already, Feb 14th-21st. Have you gotten yours?  Apparently condoms got their name from their city of origin, Condom, France. There was an informational table set up in the hallway at school today. I got a picture, but it was on my cell phone and was blurry. They were handing out condoms in every color of the rainbow. I also like the slogans they employ: Don't be silly, protect your willy. When in doubt, shroud your spout. It will be sweeter if you wrap your peter. No glove, no love! Wrap it before you tap it! Do you have any good ones? |
| Today was a really weird sort of day. Not a bad day, per se, just very, very random. 1) Bonnie has been under the weather, so she spent last night at the vet. She is doing ok now, but we had to go bail her out today.  2) We've realized this week that Bear's cancer is back. Hubby and I decided after giving her chemo last time that even though it worked and we were glad to have her with us these extra two years, that we wouldn't put her or us through it again, so these next couple of months will probably be her last.  3) I got an 81.18 on my Chemistry test.  I'm more excited about this grade than the 82 on my Algebra. The Chemistry is harder. 4) I found out from my boss today that the place I work is in serious financial trouble. Like we may not make it type trouble. I really like this job, too.5) Today during my Biology lab, one of my very young (20) lab partners asked me to buy alcohol for him and another of the partners. Do I seem like the kind of woman who routinely purchases alcohol for minors? Perhaps I do seem like it, because I'm cool and say "Dude!" and listen to heavy metal bands, but...alas, I'm not. Sadly, I am dependent upon these people for part of my Biology grade. |
| My grade from my Algebra test posted today. I got an 82. I'm sad. Hubby says to stop acting dumb. An 82 is a good respectable, solid B and that I should be proud of simply passing the first algebra test I've taken in twenty years. Whatever. I'm in chemistry and I have a lab that I'm taking in conjunction with it. I'm struggling with the chemisty class, but it's the lab that's really kicking my butt. We go in the lab for two hours a week and we measure things. Things that, if I have to be completely honest, bore that crap out of me. Take this week, for example. We did a spectrometry lab. We measured the wavelengths of light as they refract out of things like Neon gas. Booooriinnngg.  It makes pretty colored lines on the computer. Big flippity, whoopity deal. Like I give a rat's ass. But, now I have to write up a "discussion/conclusion" about the lab. And I'm pretty sure they don't want to hear about rat asses on my conclusion. Gah! I was never good at the lab portion of chemistry, I remember that. I just don't have the patience for the exact measuring and tallying. The weighing, the poking and the prodding. I. Just. Don't. Care. And now I'm paying for the privilege. Ah, well. It's a stepping stone. |
| My sister and I were talking on the phone last night about our "shows." On a sidenote. We were discussing the changes in personnel in CSI. No more Grissom. We liked how the writers handled it, though. It gave us, the viewer, a sense of closure. The same with when Warrick died. There was a funeral, etc. - the viewer got a sense of closure, like you would have in real life. We discussed that it's a pet peeve of ours that when handled badly, shows leave you hanging. A bad story will do the same. You are left with a feeling of, "And then what happened?" Every week I open my home, essentially, to these people, these characters. I know more about what is going on in Seattle Grace Hospital and the lives of the characters of Meradith Gray and company than I know about my own brothers. Just to put a little perspective on it. Those people are more...immediate... to me, if you will. If the writers handle an actor leaving badly, I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth and in fact have "quit" shows over such things. Me quitting a show = me quitting the advertising attached to it and taking my spending dollars elsewhere. That's powerful motivation on the parts of the writers to get it right, in my humble opinion. What I don't get, however, is the television execs who cancel shows for whatever reasons they do so, and don't realize that by doing so, I become leery of trusting, say NBC (a notorious mid-season show cancelling network!), and watching a new series they might bring out for me. I can't trust they won't leave me hanging. So, I don't watch in the first place. CBS is pretty good about tying up its loose ends; therefore, I trust CBS. When faced with a choice between the two stations? I will choose CBS. See how that works? And for some reason, NBC can't GET that concept. The only real beef I have with CBS at this point is that unlike NBC and ABC, I can't always watch online full episodes I've missed. That's aggravating. ABC has the easiest to navigate website and the best webisodes. CBS needs some help with their website development. Oh, well. That can't be helped by the likes of me. On an up note, my algebra test wasn't very hard. I have to wait til Monday for the results, though. But I've got a Chemistry test on Tuesday and a Biology test on Wednesday. It never rains but it pours. Time to go study! |
| This round of Follow the Leader is over. Well, the writing part is over, all that's left is for Shannon and Jenn to judge the entries. But, I'm not really interested in that part. What I AM interested in is that I made regular blog entries about varied topics for almost a month! Yay, me! That was the main reason I signed up for FtL. I wanted to expand my blogging. A bonus of the contest was that I was exposed to some excellent writing and met some fabulous new people from WDC's blogging world. So, that's exciting, too. In my real world, there are a few things that have happened that I haven't blogged about (the topic didn't come up), so I'm going to play quick catch up now. --In January, we adopted a cat from a local shelter. Her name is Bonnie and she is a black domestic long hair. She's beautiful and a real sweetie. Bear, our Aussie/Lab mix, loves her. Sofie, our dachshund, likes her, but can't get her to play. Midnight, our black domestic short hair cat, is learning to like her. Bonnie was brought to the shelter as a very young kitten and had to be bottle fed. She is over a year old and was basically "cat veal". She didn't know life outside of a cage. She is still getting used to being allowed to roam the whole house. She loves to sleep on the bed with me and Hubby and she loves to be scratched and petted. --School is going well, but I'm very busy. So busy that Hubby and Monilad (that's my 15-almost 16-year old daughter) have had to step it up around the house. Monilad does the kitchen and is going to take over cooking dinner 3-4 nights a week and Hubby, God help us, is going to take over laundry. I get to teach him how tonight. Hubby is a college educated, intelligent man. But, some things are outside the scope of his expertise. He and I have always maintained very traditional roles in our family, basically breaking it down: he does outside things, I do inside things. A Ward and June Cleaver breakdown of domestic responsibilities. I feel weird letting him do laundry. Like I'm not being a good wife. His parents and my parents broke domestic responsibilities the same way. The only time he cooks is if he's cooking outside. As I said, he's intelligent, he CAN cook and he CAN clean. He just...doesn't. Any more than I change the oil or mow the yard. I know HOW to do those things, I just... don't. We'll see how it works out. All I know is that I can't work, go to school and be the wife and mother all alone anymore, I need help. Speaking of school, I need to finish this, I have to go take an Algebra test. Wish me luck! |
Response to "other people's relationships"  :My relationship is hard enough. I live in a glass house. I try not to throw stones. If what you have going on works for you, and no one is seriously hurt by it, then go for it. I think people should be allowed to have any kind of relationship they get happiness from with any other legal adult(s). I'm not much of a survey taker, but the question about the boss, the mom and the significant other captured my interest. The jist of the question is: Your mom, your boss and your significant other are going to go through your stuff. You have one hour and one paper bag to gather up anything you don't want them to see and give it to a total stranger to watch for you. When the exercise is done, the stranger will then either burn the stuff or hold it and then give it to your child(ren) when they turn 25. What do you gather up? What do you choose to have done with it? When my dad died he didn't get that option. He just had me and my mom to go through every single thing he owned. When my grandfather died, it was my mom and her brother and sister. When it was my grandmother? All ten of her kids and all of their children, trooping through her house picking and choosing from her stuff in lots. Life isn't easy. Death is harder. I doubt very much my boss would be involved, but some day, my husband and daughter MIGHT have to go through all of my stuff. I try to be aware of that and keep my crap winnowed down for just such a reason. My sister and I talk about how large the task of sorting through our other grandmother's stuff will be. (She's a hoarder.) We aren't being cold-blooded. It's just that it will take a week or more to successfully sift the wheat from the chaff. (And we seriously think most of her stuff is chaff. Not to HER, but to anyone else. )I worry that much of my stuff is chaff to anyone else. I try to keep it winnowed myself. I come from a long line of hoarders on both sides of the family. Being aware of that helps me when it comes time to clean out closets, etc. I ask, "Do I REALLY need this? Or am I keeping it because I think I MIGHT need it one day?" If the answer is question two, I get rid of it. I don't want Monilad to have as much tumoil as I had when I had to get rid of Dad's stuff. Thinking the whole time, "Dad, I know this meant something to you, should I keep it, too?" That's just too hard. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" : I try hard to be a fun parent. Note I didn't say "the" fun parent, because Hubby and I are both fun, we are just fun in different ways. Hubby is the outdoors and sporting events fun parent. I am the video gaming and music fun parent. Although to some extent, we overlap. One of mine and Monilad's favorite things to do together is play video games. Hubby takes her out in the world to actually "do" things,like sledding, skiing, fishing, boating, etc. Occasionally I will go along, but I'm not a big enthusiast of any of these things. I don't mind the boating, but I can't be out on the water for long, because I'm a redhead and I burn. Same with fishing. Besides which, with fishing, my heart's just not in it. I'm mostly there to drown worms. I don't believe in hunting things I'm not going to eat, and I don't eat fish. I also think catch and release is cruel. So...I'm inept on purpose. I like it best if I can use some totally inappropriate lure and skip the worm altogether. Hey, worms are living creatures, too, you know. It's best if you bring a book and a comfy chair to sit on.I like to sled and ski, (and in fact own equipment for both) but haven't done either in years. I gained too much weight to do either comfortably. Plus there is my tendency to get seriously injured when doing things like skiing and sleding. Again, I'd rather stay home with a good book. Hubby recently re-took up (is that a real phrase? You know what I mean.) raquetball. Monilad is pestering him to learn it. I say let them have it. I'll swim at the swim center. I have a vision problem that prevents me from tracking small moving objects with any accuracy.Hmmm...after reading this list, maybe I'm NOT the fun parent.  Oh, well. Maybe I'll go find a good book and a comfy seat and get over it.  |
| Response to "I come running through the worlds that you have built" : Love is hard. No, strike that. Love isn't hard. Relationships are hard. Love is the fun bit right at the beginning when you first start going out and everything is roses and sunshine. Hearts and flowers. Puppy dogs and rainbows. When you talk on the phone twelve times a day or for two hours at a time and never actually say anything. When kissing is a priority. Relationships are what you build on all that lovey-dovey crap. It's the day-in, day-out slogging through the other muck of life that makes or breaks a relationship. So it helps if you can build a little of that first stuff into the relationship, I think. I talk on the phone with Hubby at least twice a day. For no reason. The conversations might be thirty seconds long. Me: "Hi, how's your day?" H: "Fine. You?" Me: "Good." H: "See you later?" Me: "Yeah. I'll be home early. I love you." H: "I love you. Hey, pick up some dog food on your way home." (An actual conversation we had last week, but typical of what I mean.) It's not in the grand sweeping gestures that the love happens. Although that doesn't hurt. For Christmas, we gave each other a trip to Vegas for Spring Break. A whole week together in the sun in March. And that will be nice, but so are the silly texts he sometimes sends me during the day telling me how sexy I am. So are the funny little "Love you" notes I stick in with his sandwich when I make his lunch. Not every day, just every now and then to surprise him. Sure if the sex is good a relationship can go along just fine. But when you throw in a teenage kid, pets, a bad economy, a wife in college who does homework every night and just plain life in general..you gotta do other things to stay in touch with one another. My personal favorite? When he leaves me love notes propped up by the bathroom sink for me to find first thing in the morning. It's a great way start the day. With  . |
| …and other cosmic bits of toilet paper on your shoe. Do you ever walk through life thinking you are all that and a bag of chips and the universe sticks a bit of toilet paper to your shoe to bring you down a notch and keep you humble? Yeah. Happens to the best of us. The other day I was walking to my car after class. The problem was I had gotten up late, so I had to park in the crappy dirt parking lot on the FAR end of campus. I’m not sure how far a walk it is from my last class, but in 5 degree F weather it felt like a mile. (It felt even further that morning at -10 degree F!!) A mile isn’t so far, you say? Add a twenty pound backpack to the trip. Now make it uphill with air so cold it freezes your boogers and makes them all poky in your nose. And that’s when the universe got me. Does your life ever need a soundtrack? Mine does. I listen to my iPod while I walk around campus and sometimes I get tickled at what plays. It feels like my life’s soundtrack. Godsmack’s I Stand Alone was playing when it happened. My nose started to run. Just my right nostril. Just a little, but soon I had a snotcicle on my right nostril and I had a quandary. Wipe it on my sleeve? No, brand new coat. Has to be dry cleaned. Hmmm. On my glove? No, it’s my only pair of gloves and I’m not going to walk around the rest of the day with frozen snot on them. Scarf? No, Mom made me the scarf and it might not stand up well in the wash. Hmmm. Meanwhile, the snotcicle was sliding down at a glacial rate and Godsmack was blaring away. I stand alone. Options, options. I could farmer blow. I checked around surreptitiously. Nope. Too many bystanders. Farmer blowing isn’t the way to go in a crowd. I sniffed experimentally a couple of times, but nope. That sucker was frozen good. I stopped the glacial creep, though, so it wasn’t growing anymore. I stemmed the tide, if you will. But, I still had the original problem. As I pondered my difficulty, I ducked my head as if burrowing into my scarf from the cold and struggled not to crack up laughing. Bravely I soldiered on. I just needed to make it the last block and a half to my car. Finally I got there and AHA! Kleenex, in the console. Fabulous. No more snotcicle. It’s always something to bring you down isn’t it? A hole in the ass of your swimsuit at the waterpark. The classic five squares of toilet paper you trail all over WalMart. Sigh. Snotcicle. Good one, universe. You got me that time! This entry was for Ernie. |
| What gets in to people that makes them think they don't have to play by normal civilized behaviour rules in an office or school setting? I work with a woman, I'll call her Frieda. Freida is a bitch. An unapologetic, won't work with anyone, can't understand why everyone hates her, bitch. When you try to have an open disscussion with her, she shouts - yes, shouts - at you about how you are in the wrong and she is in the right. Slowly, it has evolved that no one in the company wants to deal with her, so everyone works around her. She is shunned. Another coworker and I even refer to it as "the shunning". Frieda grumbles to the office (I work in a large open cubicle setting) at large about how, "There's no communication here. No one communicates with anyone else!" Uh, yeah we do. We just don't talk to you, bitch, because no one wants to get yelled at. She even yells at the female boss/owner. (The company is owned by a husband and wife team. He is the final word on anything, but she owns half the company and runs the office.) I am usually the kind of person who tries to make peace in a situation and tries to see all sides and get along with everyone. For a long time, I would take her side and I was the conduit to her for the rest of the company. But I just got shouted at one too many times. Screw you, bitch. I finally told her while she was yelling at me one day to lower her voice when she talked to me. I also explained to her that the louder she talked the more in the wrong she usually was. Two coworkers later told me they were astonished by this insight, but it was true. The more she shouts and tries to talk over you and back you down, the more in the wrong she is. That behavior drives me crazy. She must have gotten unsatisfactory marks in Kindergarden under "plays well with others." Because she most certainly doesn't. So, I have stopped being her advocate and she has slowly become more hermit-like. No one stops by her desk to chat. No one says casual hellos/goodbyes to her. She is shunned. If the economy were better, I think she would have already quit and found a new job. I know she hates the people in this one. Too bad. We hate her, too. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" : What do I like to read in a blog? That's so hard to answer. Perhaps it's easier to answer what I DON'T want to read in a blog. Today I got up. I fixed the kids toast on white bread not wheat bread. They ate all the strawberry jam last week, so I made them use the grape jam I canned last summer. Before I took them to school, I had to clean up dog vomit. etc, etc, ad nauseuem.... Who gives a rat's ass! Is there a story in there? A point? A thought? Give me something to work with people. I don't want to read a blow by blow account of your boring ass day. I have that in my OWN life. Mine's pretty freaking boring, what the hell would I want to relive YOUR's for? Another blog I will either click right out of or stop reading is if I have to hear day after day after day like a broken record what is wrong with your world. Cheese with that whine? If your life sucks so freaking much, (if you aren't sure re-read your own entries and see if you can discern a pattern) seek help. Professional help. Leave your spouse. Submit your writing somewhere. Give away your kids. Do SOMETHING to improve your situation. But don't expect me to keep patting you on the back and saying, "There, there, it's not your fault." It damn well is your fault. If your life sucks, it's your fault. Take responsibility for it and move on. Things I'll come back for time and again? Humor. I love humor. Make me laugh and I'm yours. I'll click on your blog every time you update it just on the off chance you will give me a chuckle. And I'm not saying you have to tell me a joke. I'm just saying maybe don't take yourself and life so seriously that you can't see the humorous side to things. If you really try, there is humor in almost ANY situation. Here, I'll show you: When my father died, it was the worst time in my life. I thought I would never get through it. I thought I would die, too. The day after he died, Hubby and I went with Mom to the funeral home in Grand Junction, CO, to make arrangements for them to ship Daddy to Texas for the funeral. I was running on an altered plane of existence where the whole ordeal was somewhat surreal for me. But, for some reason, when we got to the part where they were going to actually fly Daddy to Texas, I stopped the funeral director and made him repeat what he'd just said. "We'll ship your father in a special styrofoam container since the funeral home in Texas already has his actual coffin." "I thought that's what you said," I told him. "So what you are saying is that you are shipping Daddy to Texas in a big beer cooler." He was nonplussed. He had no response. Mother and I got to giggling and couldn't quit and Hubby had to finish the arrangements. It was just the thought of my 6' 5", 350 pound father being shipped to Texas in a big Styrofoam beer cooler that just got to us. See? Humor is everywhere if you just have the right mindset. Something else that attracts me is the voice of a blog. Talk to me like we are sitting down having lunch. Or tea, or coffee. Or Bloody Mary's. I like a chatty informal blog. Let's face it, people, these are just the monologued bits of conversations we have with one another. The comments are the rest of the play. Don't come at me like Shakespeare, I don't have the patience to wade through that. I'm looking for, "What's up?! How you been? You won't believe what happened to me today!" Not something heavy like Tolstoy, Voltaire or Descartes. I CAN think at that level, but I don't WANT to. It makes my brain tired. Those are my big points. There are other ones. If your political or religious views are spread thickly over your blog, I'm probably not interested. The way I was raised I was told there are three taboo topics in polite company: money, religion and politics. I TRY not to break these and odds are if you are a repeat offender of that, I won't revisit your blog. So, now that everybody knows the big taboos and blog pointers, let's get out there and blog friendly. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" : There are days my mom drives me nuts. Since my dad died, she reels from crisis to crisis like a drunk monkey. I love her, but, it gets a bit much. My in-laws reel from crisis to crisis, too. That kind of living makes me tired. It's like my husband and I and our siblings are the adults now and our parents are the children getting up to crazy mischief. I don't know about lease-a-parent, but certainly a break from them would be nice. Like I said, don't get me wrong. I love them dearly. But, a mini-break from the chaos would be nice. Hubby's parents are actually better about it than my mom. They save their crises up and have one large one a year with two or three smaller ones along with it. I never can tell with mom. She and the various relatives just have a new crisis every time the old one clears up. I worry about her blood pressure and stress levels. It can't be good on her body to operate at full-tilt "Holy crap, what now?!" all the time. I hope that when we get older, Monilad doesn't have to deal with our crises. I hope that we can manage to lead our lives with some sort of decorum. Probably not. |
| Response to "42 Logical Posivitism Avenue" : Forty-two is a fantastic number. But I have always been partial to the number two. Two is the date of my birthday. Many things come in pairs: male, female; yin, yang; day, night. Noah gathered all the animals into the ark two by two. Taurus, my zodiacal sign, is the second sign of the zodiac. This year on my birthday, I will turn 38. I will ADMIT turning 29. This will be my tenth anniversary of turning 29. I still celebrate birthdays, because they are fun and they DO beat the alternative, but hey…a girl can still cheat. I will be 29 until I turn 65, then I’ll start turning 40. I’m growing old kicking and screaming the whole way.In mathematics, two is the only even prime number, because all other even numbers are divisible by two. February is the second month of the year. February is the month of Hubby’s birthday. Hubby keeps telling me he doesn’t want anything for his birthday. He tells me that every year. I think I’ll take him out somewhere nice next weekend and then I can call it our Valentine’s Day celebration, too – I’m cheap, what do you want?! Two can also be paired with itself and you have the perfectly serviceable twenty-two. Twenty-two as in “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller. There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. A classic, and a place I find myself often. Twenty-two is also the minimum (and usual) number of episodes a television series airs in a season. If you have a mystic mind, there are twenty-two cards in the major arcana. (The major arcana are the “extra” cards in a tarot deck.) The number two card is the High Priestess. The cards are numbered 0-21, so there is some debate as to which is the twenty second card: the Fool (0) or the World (21). I could go either way. In numerology, the number twenty-two is considered significant. Two in numerology is for compassion. Twenty-two? Double it. Go out and get a magic number of your own. Or a set of magic numbers. I like 3, 13, 8 and 34 for obscure reasons, too. They come in handy when you pick lottery numbers. |
| Response to "crutches" : This is a hard entry. Part of me wants to let loose with a blistering rant. Part of me wants to see the other side of the equation. Part of me wants to be diplomatic. I know that however I respond to this, there will be snarky feelings about my answer. So I think I will go with unvarnished honesty minus the rant on my part. Here goes. I am disabled. Legally and clinically. So is my daughter, but not to the extent that I am. I am disabled to the point that I could apply for SSI and never work again in my life. "What?" You ask. "But you function. You have a job, you go to school." Yes, I do. I CHOOSE to. It's hard as hell for me to do. But I have chosen to NOT lay down and give up. Every day is a struggle for me. And there is no way I could function in this world without handfuls of medication - I take thirteen pills a day. Thirteen. But, I do it so that I can lead a "normal" life. I don't take advantage of the disability programs available at the school, either. Because even though I KNOW I'm disabled, I treat myself as "normal". My husband treats me as normal. We treat our daughter as normal. We happen to be bipolar. But that doesn't give us a free pass to run amok in the world. It isn't a license to be an asshole. It isn't a license to be a bitch to the people around me. The only concession to my disability is that my boss lets me set my own hours. And I try not to take advantage of that. My coworkers don't get it. One of them gets especially snarky about me coming and going whenever. But I calmly explained to her one day that my pay is commensurate with my hours. I don't have special pay. I work, I get paid. And my being there or not doesn't affect her position, so what the hell was her problem? She leaves me alone about my hours now. And I don't freakout on work time. I go home for that. And if I have days that I can't leave home, then I don't go to work. That's the deal, I leave the crazy at home. School is hard for me, but doable. Hubby is VERY supportive. So is Monilad. And we support her, school is hard for her, too. But, doable. We bump along ok. No excuses. We do our thing. There are concessions. We have very few visitors. We have very few changes to our routine. Routine is important to us. As a family we get it done. We pull together. And we try very hard not to rely on crutches to get us through the day. I'm disabled, but that doesn't mean I can't live a normal life. It just means I have to try harder to live normally. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" : When I was pregnant, I was a lunatic. I was supposed to be on complete bedrest, but being on bed rest for five months does something to your mind. You just lose it from the inactivity and the day time television. There are only so many books you can read, fish you can watch, etc. You just snap eventually. I did anyway. I would have awful hot flashes. Luckily I was pregnant in the winter. I would go stand outside in a nightgown during sleet storms and finally be cool. I would also have awful cravings. I craved cheeseburgers from a specific fast-food place around the corner from our house. I only craved them at about 3 am, though. I also would pester my first husband into letting me go grocery shopping with him. He worked from 1 pm to midnight, so we would shop after he got off work. I would walk into Albertson's and grab a big box of Little Debbie Star Crunches and then proceed to eat the whole freaking box while we shopped. Then I'd hand the empty box to the cashier and tell her to ring those up, too. I also nested horribly during the last two weeks of my pregnancy. I'm not sure why, but nothing felt clean enough. So I spent an entire week bleaching all my walls and floors. Yeah. You read that right. I used steel wool pads and bowls of straight bleach and scrubbed everything in my house. My hands would bleed. I was a freak. But, my house was spotless. The fumes would have dropped a bull elephant at thirty paces, though. In retrospect, it probably is a good thing I couldn't have more kids. I don't think I would have survived another pregnancy.  |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" : The weekends are my downtime. I wish. The weekends are my catch up time. Saturdays I run my errands. It usually takes half the day. I have a list of stores and ether Hubby or Monilad is my partner in crime while I shop. And then when I get home, it's time to catch up on whatever I couldn't fit in during the week. Laundry, bog cleaning, etc. Monilad does a good job keeping us in clean dishes and keeping the kitchen clean. So, usually it's the laundry or my bathroom. And clean sheet day. Gotta love clean sheet day.Saturday nights are family time. Or if everyone abandons me, it's my time to catch up on my DVR'd shows. Right now there are nine waiting for me to watch. And three that I need to catch online because the network execs changed their timeslots and they are on at bad times to get DVR'd. I my shows. Sunday mornings are my big breakfast with the family days. My day to catch up on how their week went, what they have going on the following week. The day to coordinate our schedules. Then we spend the rest of the day having "alone" time. That means we can do anything we want or need to do. I usually catch up with my blogging or my homework then. Now. Breakfast is over. Monilad is cleaning up because I cooked. Fair is fair. Hubby is napping.I don't read all of the other entries before I write mine each day. I read the leading entry and then I write mine. I do that on purpose. I am easily self intimidated. I read a lot of blogs here on WDC and every time I do, I think, "There should be a kiddie pool for bloggers like me. I'm not fit to swim with these big dogs." But, I LIKE blogging. It's helpful for me to be able to come in here and just blurt out whatever is in my brain. No prewriting, no polishing, just freewriting. I'm thankful that I have a few regular readers who are forgiving and kind in their comments. Who, even if they don't always understand what I'm trying to say, support me. So, I try to stay out of my own way and let the process work. Because, in its own way, blogging, for me, is better (and cheaper!) than therapy. |
| Response to "Passions" : Being bipolar has it's drawbacks. One of them is the ability to maintain a sustained interest in any given subject for very long. I have passionate interests in things for on average six weeks to six months and then that project/idea gets shelved with all the other discards. The interest lasts as long as the mania sustains it. When the depression or down cycle comes, I lose interest and move on. The good thing is, I'm quite the Jack of all trades as a result! I have five unfinished quilts languishing in my "sewing" room. (Where most of my projects go to live in all their unfinished glory.) I have two storage boxes worth of needlepoint projects. There are also beading projects, sewing projects, candlemaking discards, soap making paraphanalia...the list goes on and on. Every year I plant a garden and then lose interest midway through the growing season, Hubby and Monilad have to see it through if we want veggies out of it. I currently have five, yes FIVE, novels in various stages of construction. And countless other short stories that are just random paragraphs that need me to do something with them. For the last year, the only things I've been able to write and finish are flash fiction and blog entries. Sad, isn't it? But my real sustained passions? My family. That includes my pets and my extended family. Hubby has kept my interest for over thirteen years now. Right now, my current passion is college. Hubby and I are hoping the variety of new classes every semester will help me sustain interest in it long enough to finish my degree. Pathetic, no? For now I love science. I love geology. I graduate in spring of 2012. Hopefully. And then we'll see. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" : Hunh. There's a trick to life? No shit. Go where I'm told and do what's asked of me, all without complaining, I suppose? I'm not one much for that. I'm a natural born boat rocker. I'm a questioner, I was that little kid adults love to hate. "Why?" "Why is the sky blue?" "Why is the grass green?" "Why do I have to go to bed at 9 o'clock?" "Why? Why? Why?" Why not? How does stuff work? That's another favorite question of mine. I'm a scientist at heart. I want to KNOW. I want to understand. Go here, do that. Be a good little automaton. Not bloody likely. |
| Response to "Invalid Entry" : My neck of Montana isn't the most PC place in the universe. I can't go a week without hearing a hippie joke, a redneck joke, an incest joke, a sexist joke, a gay joke or yep...a racist joke. Any race, doesn't matter. Black, white, Asian, Native American, Indian we don't care. We are equal opportunity bigots here in Montana. The recent Presidential election really brought out the cream of the crop of the black jokes. They were really bad. And they were everywhere. I heard them at work. Hubby heard them at work. We both got emails, texts, forwards, etc. Our daughter even heard them all day long at school. (There are maybe five black people in her school - that's K-12. That's a LOT of white kids telling jokes they heard at home.) Personally I don't care what color Obama is. He could be a big purple giraffe for all I care. What I'm interested in is what he can do for my country. What kind of politician, what kind of patriot, what kind of American will he be? THAT's what I'm interested in. Quite frankly I'm sick to damn death about hearing that he's black. I could give a rat's ass. What I want to hear about is what his plans to save my 401k are. I want to know if he plans to keep helping Congress throw good money after bad in Union bailouts. I want to know why he thinks it's ok to appoint known Socialists to high ranking Cabinet posts. I want to know what can he do to help bail out this quickly sinking ship. That's the kind of shared experience I want to have with the man. Him doing the job he was elected to do. And doing it well. He told us he could do it better. Change and hope. Well? Get the hell after it, buddy. |
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