So yesterday I was in a mood. I didn't drink anything away after picking Emily up from school because, well, I've already drank it all away and didn't have a drop of amaretto or a single bottle of Boone's cheap and yummy anywhere. After Leirin got off the bus, I sat here for maybe 15 minutes before saying "Put your shoes on, we're going to Dad's for dinner." Jake didn't feel like going. He spent the day trying to cough up a lung and the half pound of peppermints I fed him in an attempt to help with the scratchy throat that kept him coughing had left him less than excited about the prospect of food. Poor baby. I felt for him, I really did, but this was all about me and my need to do something to keep myself from exploding. I was certainly willing to offer ice cream for supper if that was all he felt like he could handle (he chose to eat a few of my fries instead) I just had to get out of the house and do something just because I wanted to and not because someone said I needed to do this NOW so I could hurry up and wait.

It was a nice little bit of normal for all of us. Doug even came out to have dinner with us, but wouldn't you know half way through the meal he turns a funky shade of pale and declares himself to be "sick". Jake came home with Doug and the girls and I went to the house. I've sworn I wasn't going back until the house is "ours" but it was supposed to be ours today, not another week from now, and I needed to go and remember why we're putting ourselves through this. The girls broke into a run toward the barn as soon as they were out of the van. Leirin slowed down to walk with me and Emily went full speed ahead. We heard her yelling when we were about half way there. She'd holler, pause a minute, then holler again. By the time we got close enough to see her she was jumping up and down, her smile bright enough to light the world on a day the sun didn't shine.
"Listen! I can hear me!" she said, breaking into another fit of yelling. She had discovered echoes.

Leirin and I stood at the edge of the woods and picked out which trees would be cleared to open a path to the barn and decided on a fence line, then we headed off into the barn with Emily to see what animals had left their prints behind recently. There were racoons, as always, and this time there were deer tracks too. We kept finding parts of prints we couldn't figure out, much bigger and different from the coons and deer tracks that dotted the loose red dirt. About half way through the barn, we found a good, clear print. It's a cat. A big one judging from the prints as large as my palm. About 20 feet away we found several more clear prints. Definitely bobcat or cougar. It sent Emily into a mighty freak out, but didn't stop her from romping through the woods with us as we walked the property line. We didn't go all the way to the back side because we were all wearing sandals, but we walked far enough to be completely satisfied that no matter what goes on outside those boundaries, the little world we'll make will remain in tact. We walked for about an hour, stopping to look at deer tracks and scrapes in the woods, listening occasionally for the cry of a cat (ok so we might have been just a tiny bit spooked but we got over it). The girls climbed on a couple of fallen trees and we found wild roses growing in the clearing that will become pasture. I got just what I needed yesterday walking in the quiet woods and I know that if it could fix what was wrong with me yesterday, it's going to be worth waiting for.

Closing on the house has been pushed back until Wednesday of next week. This, after I spent 5 HOURS driving today to get this paper here and pick this paper up from there so we could get it done tomorrow. The attorney handling the closing dropped the ball. Somebody dropped the ball. We've had the ultimate in Hell Closings. I'm the new poster child for Murphy's Law. Doug asked me earlier today if I was getting excited yet (that was before we knew the closing had to be pushed back) and I said "No. There's more than 24 hours left for something to go wrong."
As usual, I was right again. Now there's 5 whold days for something to go wrong. House buying bites. Of course I'll be singing a different tune once it's over and done with. We'll have the place I love and want to live forever. I just wish we could get started on it already. I've been patient enough, I think. I deserve to sit on the porch and drink my coffee and not have to have a single house in sight. Can't wait.

Time to pick Emily up from school. I'm hoping to come back home and drink my grumps away. I may have a celebratory sip, but mostly I'm going to whine about the fact that Saturday morning won't see me painting new bedrooms.

Austin starts today at a new daycare - a very impressive place that my brother and sister-in-law were lucky (and very happy) to find on short notice. It's hard when you have kids to find a place you are comfortable leaving them for the majority of the day. I remember having to go through the hunt when Leirin was little. I remember again trying to find a place for all three of my kids that I could actually afford and feel good about leaving them there. I never went back to work. I'm sure now the situation is even more difficult than it was then, so I was really glad to see Terry so excited about the place she had found.

It's been three weeks since I started on short notice babysitting duty when the laday that ran Austin's last daycare decided to close, leaving them with only a few hours to line up a sitter or take vacation time from work. The timing wasn't the best. My house is overflowing with boxes packed into every inch of space I can find. It makes for good climbing for Austin, lots of stress for me. I've been sick too, and that's made it really hard some days when all I wanted to do was lay in bed and moan in congested misery. Our daily schedule has gone from...well, it's just gone. I did things as I got an opportunity and that was that. There were some days it would be a good 45 minutes from the time my brain first said "I need to go to the potty" until I actually got to go and even then I usually went with him standing beside me screaming because he thought I should have kept right on sitting on the couch watching Shrek or making him the umpty billionth bowl of oatmeal or grits he asked for with no intention of eating.

This morning he isn't coming and I'm going to miss that little poot. Though neither one of us has felt very good (he's had an ear and sinus infection) and there has been much whining and crying, it's been fun too. It's been 5 years since I hung out with an adventurous two year old, dancing to raffi songs with lots of hand motions and learning all the ways to coax him into giving me whatever dangerous thing he just pulled from under my couch before he pokes his eye out with it. With three kids above the age of seven in our house now, it's a long way from baby-proof and Austin is a master at finding the little sharp, highly choke-able things that my kids let slip through couch cushions.

There were moments I wish I had a high-chair or a play pen I could put him in just long enough for me to go pee. I was reminded just how asleep my arm could get after carrying a whiny baby around while I tried to get a teenie speck of cleaning done here and there and at the end of the day my arms felt just like my legs used to after I spent hours and hours rollerskating when I was a kid. But there were those moments when he'd walk over to me to give me a big wet open-mouthed kiss and say "Uhhv oooh" (Love you), or turn to me with a huge smile and give me his version of a thumbs-up (his index finger), or stumbling through the latest dance he'd learned with The Wiggles, and I'd have to fight a momentary pang of baby lust. Some things he would do were just cute enough to make me seriously consider telling my brother to stop the sitter search, I'm hooked. But I really don't have enough time to take on another daytime job. As it is I barely manage business paperwork, school and housework. I imagine if I tried to take another job, the condition of my house would probably never be any better than it is at this moment, and that's a depressing thought. I'm just not the mom I used to be, I guess. As I chased him around the house the last couple of weeks trying to remember what worked best for getting permanent marker off bare legs, I wondered how I ever managed to do it when I had two babies and a 5 year-old.

I can't remember. It must have been pure luck because I can't see myself as being that organized. I had managed it somehow, and I guess I did a pretty good job because none of my kids ever did any permanent damage. There was that one time that Emily drank a bottle of aftershave. And there was that other time she flushed $1200.00 down the toilet. And Jake has had countless x-rays on his tough little noggin because he seemed intent on cracking it open. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm glad the toddler years are over and done with and I'll just satisfy myself with the occasional stint of babysitting to get my toddler fix. I hope it won't be too long before I get to do it again, but for today I'm glad I'll finally get a chance to eat my lunch sitting down and I can be pretty sure I won't end the day with grits in my hair.

Emily is home sick today. I had to pick her up yesterday before 9am and she spent most of the day sleeping on the couch. It's her sinuses again. Whatever it is that Jake and I also have, but not the same thing (apparently) that Austin has. I have to call the specialist today and see if he wants to see Em or if there is any point since she is already on an antibiotic. Nothing to do about a viral infection anyway but maybe a look at her sinuses blown into something that has her face swollen will help him determine what she needs now instead of having to wait until the middle of May and take a chance that she may not be sick then. Yeah, like that will ever happen. This girl has been sick with something every few weeks for the past year. I'm pretty sure it will come down to me, Em and Jake all having to be surgically altered to keep our noses in decent shape.

Yesterday with Austin wasn't bad. He was in a great mood. He just wouldn't let me move. As long as I sat on the couch working on a word search puzzle, he was a happy camper. That explains the condition of my house today. I hope I can muster up the energy to clean some of it. It's depressingly dirty.


We're counting down the days to closing in single digits now. Even so I wait for the dreaded phone call from the loan guy saying "Unpack. It's shot to hell." The optomist in me is on emergency vacation from the stress of it all. He keeps saying everything is on schedule, but I just want the phone call that tells me it's all done and you won't have to see or talk to me again until we sign papers and you're free to get on with your life. I want it to be over. No more calls from anyone asking for this piece of paper or that. They've asked for everything but our kids' birth certificates. Being self-employed is a real pain in the butt sometimes. It's a good thing I can see myself living in this house forever because I never want to do this again. Never, ever.
Ever.
Leirin is practicing up for her new job as yard man. Though I'm not sure how cutting less than an acre of unlevel, overgrown with periwinkle and trimming neatly around a few dozen roses will compare to six acres of flat ground and a riding mower. Practice is practice, I guess, and there will still be some small trees and bushes to trim around with the push mower. Emily and Jake are excited about the prospect of acres of strawberries. Already they wonder if there will be any ready to pick and eat when we move. And Doug thinks there can be enough berries produced to supply the restaurant with those two around...the two that eat an entire flat of gigantic strawberries in less time than it takes for a run of commercials during a favorite tv show. Silly man. Those two could lay waste to an entire gardening state.

I'm just hoping the wisteria is still in bloom when we get there. I want to stand underneath the tree that it winds into and be surrounded by the waterfall of lavender blooms. I want to camp out in the woods and see if we can catch a glimpse of the deer that has been scraping his antlers on the big tree, or the mega-coon with paw prints as big as my palm. We find fresh ones in the dirt floor of the barn every time we go over. It must be a big enough racoon for the kids to ride to have feet like that. And I'm looking forward to buying paint and ripping out carpet.

I'm babysitting this week and several times over, I've been amazed at how lost I've felt with a two year old. Yesterday after making bowl after bowl of whatever I could find only to have Austin shake his head no, I had to break down and call my brother at work.

"What does he want when he says 'I mona ead a bow!'?"

"Grits, usually. But that don't mean he's going to eat them. It's what he's asking for though. Unless he means oatmeal"

I had tried oatmeal already and gotten a firm shake of the head and another plea to let him ead a bow. So I made grits. He only ate about half but that's way less than I went through in other bowl stuff trying to figure it out. I have a picky eater of my own, but thank goodness I can understand him when he asks me for one of the six things he actually eats. And if he asks for it, it usually means he'll eat it. I still remember the days when each of my kids were like Austin. I'd just forgotten how frustrating it could be and how seriously it could appear that the kid was going to starve to death before I could figure it out.


The plan today is to start out with grits if he asks to eat a bowl and hope he didn't mean oatmeal.

The Snowball Effect

My McDonalds construction winker yesterday set in motion a series of events that made for a very nice day. My husband gasped in mock indignation as I grinned like a schoolgirl while telling him about what happened, then he spent the evening making up for the fact that it was the McDonalds guy that made my day. He even woke me up in the middle of the night to flirt with me - sweet whispers of the depth of his love tickled my ear as he snuggled closer to me, warming me against the cool night air wafting through the open window.

Pay day.

Naturally, I snuggled close beside him and went right back to sleep, but when I woke up this morning everything he said came fresh into my mind. Not his exact words but his feelings. I know now that there are some things you can believe beyond a shadow of a doubt. And I feel guilty.

We’ve been together for many years, and I love that man, I really do. But doing so has taken a toll on me I’m convinced I couldn’t pay again. I’m pretty sure that all relationships come with a price. I know with each year I grow older that I’ve gained wisdom since the last time I got older, but there always seems to be an exception. Somewhere along the way, it becomes apparent, exception rules and it is easy to end up feeling like you’ve been the world’s biggest fool.

Many times in my life I’ve made statements about what I will or will not accept, tolerate, whatever. I remember one time hearing a girl say about her boyfriend of many years, “He brought everything I said I never wanted right to my door.” Then I wondered, why does she stay with him? But I had yet to pay the price that was mine. It’s also said that true love never dies. I guess it doesn’t, but it carries with it the power of destruction. It can fill you to overflowing and leave you beaten to nothingness, all within the span of a broken heartbeat.

I’ve experienced the nothingness, and I’ve sheltered myself against it with such dedication, I realized as he whispered to me in the dark of the night that it’s taken away from me as much, if not more, than it’s protected me from. While I made sure I would never again be beaten down by my love for him, I’ve kept it from giving me anything. Kept him from getting anything from it. I've been afraid.

Fear. It can make us choose to avoid the happiness we long for in order to avoid the risk of the pain that kind of happiness commands when it goes wrong. And so I’ve lived the last several years floating somewhere in this happy medium I had built for myself. Mind made up, heart safely guarded from the risks of what could be, as well as from the promise of what could be. No all. No nothing. Just somewhere in between.

I had settled into what I thought was a safe place and I’ve made us both lonely, I think. I tried to have it and remove the risk. There is no such thing in love, I think, as safe from. I think that in love, you’re laid bare - open to it all. Risking everything. I think maybe there is no other way. No other real love. It is that way with my kids. Nothing I wouldn’t do. No risk I wouldn’t take. No price I wouldn’t pay for them.

Love brings all those things you don’t want, the risk of things you’re sure you can’t survive – not once, and surely not a second time, right to your front door. It forces you to choose. To risk. All or nothing. Not somewhere in between.

I feel I owe us both an apology. What he has taken from me, I’ve lost and taken pound for pound of wounded flesh from him.
Last night, for the first time in years, I trusted him and what he said is in his heart. This morning I tried to embrace it while still keeping myself safe from it, but I want more. I want it all. Not something in between.

Go ahead, make my day

Jake has speech on Mondays and afterwards we go to McDonalds to eat and play on the playground. Today had started of bad. Real bad. And I forgot to take a book with me, so I was sitting there with nothing to read and everyone I tried to call from my cell wasn't home. Thankfully, just before I was about to die of boredom, a woman came in with kids and Jake started playing with them and I talked to the mom. We talked like we'd known each other for years and wouldn't you know, we have. She wrote her phone number on the back of her business card for me and I recognized her name (somehow, we'd managed to talk all that time without giving names - I am all kinds of dufus, just like I said). Turns out she is the same girl that used to cut my husband's hair years ago before he started working so many hours he didn't have time for more than a quick buzz cut with the clippers (given by me) on some rushed morning when he decided he could not stand his hair brushing his collar anymore. I guess the last time I saw her was when I was pregnant with Emily and she's had a couple more kids since then too. We had a great time talking and saying over and over again "small world, ain't it?". Yeah.

So half way through my third coke refill, I had to go to the potty. On my way back, I passed a table with two guys who were apparently on lunch break from some kind of construction job. As I passed by, the one facing me gave me a hearty "mmmmm mmmmmmm" and a wink. It's been years - I mean YEARS since I had a good flirt, and though mmm mmm ranks way low on the best kinds of flirts to get, that wink and the smile made up for it's lack of originality. The fact that he was a real hottie helped a lot too. And like I said, it's been a good many years, a good twenty pounds and at least one kid ago since I got a flirt like that. I miss it. I'll take it. Though there was a time, years ago, when it happened often enough I could afford to be picky about which ones I accepted and which ones I blew off, today I took the lame flirtation and gave him my best "thank you very much" smile and tried to avoid stumbling over my own feet in a grand show of goofiness that showed just how long it's been since some strange guy noticed me enough to make sounds at me as I passed.

Part of me is embarrassed that it seems like it will be a highlight of my day. But part of me - the frumpy, usually in sweats or overalls housewife with 3 kids part - is still busy sucking in my gut, standing straight to make the best use of the little boobs I have left and remembering days gone by, when flirts were plentiful and I was so used to them I didn't properly appreciate them.

It's visible, from the left of the sink where the coffee pot sits, across the kitchen, up the stairs, over the landing, heavy on either side of the french doors, and right to the chair I sit in at the computer. It can be followed like a trail of breadcrumbs. It's coffee sloshes. No matter how I try to adjust the amount of coffee I put in my cup each time, I spill some (quite a lot) on my way back to the desk. And I really have to wonder how I managed to wait tables. And why is it just a coffee thing. I can walk with the world's biggest glass of coke (it's all coke), run even, and never spill a drop, but I can't even tip toe with a cup of coffee without spilling so much it becomes a sound effect.

Name that sound! Thud, splat, thud, splat, thud, splat...that's me, walking with a cup of coffee (if I have my sandals on that is). There is much to be learned from the sounds of my steps and sloshes, like the time of year. In the dead of winter when it's cold outside and in and I'm wearing my slippers the sounds are swish, slosh, swish, slosh, swish, slosh...you get the picture.

It occurs to me as I wrote the winter step description, that I'm also inadequate at walking in slippers. My slippers are the kind you slip your feet into, and though I can pick a quarter off the floor with my toes, turn the bath water on and off, and lots of other cool things, I can not hold shoes with no back strap onto my feet. So I slide them else my shoe goes flying off ahead of me. In some areas I am just a dufus, there's no denying it.

Austin appears to have shared with us the big nasty that is whatever was going around in daycare (please don't let it be strep) before it closed down and now Jake, Leirin, Emily and I have really, I mean REALLY bad sore throats, low temps and lots of coughing from the funky throat that feels like we've swallowed a rock with a feather attached to it. Just great. Austin goes to the doctor this morning and I'll see how everyone is holding up this afternoon. So far, it seems I have the worst of it. It just doesn't seem right.

Last week while Austin was napping, I clicked to watch Under the Tuscan Sun on PPV. I've never rented a movie on PPV and it was pretty scary. So easy it could be addictive. No driving involved in renting or taking back, no late fees (and I ALWAYS have late fees) and the scenery in the movie alone was worth the price.
There was this one scene that pretty much summed up the romantic idea I've always had of foreign men...particularly French and Italian men. I've never met a Frenchman, but I've known enough Italians to get the idea that they are romantics and this scene in the movie just drove it home. Francis was doubting herself, her sanity, for buying the house in Tuscany and thinking she must be insane. The man she was talking to (I can't for the life of me remember his name) was not what I'd call a handsome man. He stood there, looking a bit shy and said "Francesca, if you do not stop being so sad, I'm going to have to make love to you. And I have never been unfaithful to my wife." And there I went. Just like every time on Buffy when Oz, Angel or Spike turned their face to the wind and sniffed for the scent of their woman, my heart beat out C-O-O-L in morse code.

Things keep getting more and more hectic. Just when I think it isn't going to get any worse, I pack another box and it ends up lessening the amount of room we have to walk in the house even more. Add to it the fact that I'm babysitting for the next two weeks and I understand completely why my get up and go has got up and went. It aggravates me to find myself sitting to watch television in the middle of the day now because I can do little else. I can't even see my washing machine this morning for the pile of boxes that were packed up last night. Guess it's a good thing I also can't see the laundry basket that I'm sure is overflowing.
As I go through things to pack I keep finding things that make me wonder why the hell we ever kept that thing in the first place. And the worst part is...I actually consider keeping it again.
It must've been good, right? Tragic.

And speaking of tragic. Doug called home yesterday and told me to watch the news for reports on a bunch of bodies found at a junk yard near where he works. One of his truck drivers had mentioned it when he made the morning delivery. So I watched and saw nothing. A "bunch" of bodies I thought surely would cause an interruption in regularly scheduled programming to let the public know what's up. Later on in the day Doug called me from work and mentions that the mayor has apparently made a statement about what happened (still not on the news). Six people were hunting and they were stalking some turkeys in a huge old junk yard. So they flush the turkeys into the open, fire and...shoot four of the six people that are hunting. Tragic, yes. But humerous too in it's own way. I mean, I could see an accidental shooting of one person, but FOUR OUT OF SIX? No way.
Now, being of redneck descent myself, I was taught to shoot a gun at a young age, though I declined ever learning to hunt. I don't shoot or eat game of any kind, but that's a whole 'nother entry. Even so, I KNOW you don't hunt in circles and shoot toward the center. I'm convinced it didn't make the news because there is no way a report could be done without making all of the people look like the raging idiots they must be. Four out of six. It boggles the mind.

Thunder!

As yesterday promised, we have rain, rain and more rain today. Our first REAL thunderstorms of the year and though they are weak and far from the great huge storms we will have later in the summer, I revel just the same.

I'm babysitting for the next two weeks so it will be like a vacation without actually getting any rest. No housework, no laundry, no dusting. Austin (my nephew, who will be two in a few weeks) will keep me busy trying to keep him from climbing the mountain of boxes I have packed full of books. I may get inventive and shift them around to make something for him to climb on. But I think I've already pulled a muscle in my lower back, so maybe not. Jake and I will pass the school day with short snatches of reading. Who knows, with a little cooperation I might even pack a few more things or do some more of that laundry. Doubtful, but I entertain the thought nonetheless.

Those perfect days

Most people would call me crazy for loving these "dreary" days that I claim as my favorites, but I don't care. There is something comforting about the blanketing of haze given by the clouds and the contrast of lush new leaves covering every tree. Dogwood blooms and brilliant greens of the freshly frocked oaks are warm against the sky, and though the clouds look cold and distant they are low and comforting - like being tucked in.

The temperature won't vary too much today. The birds will seem to spend more time sitting on the tree limbs and chirping out a song than flittering around from this place to that. My cats will prop lazily near a window so they can watch the action. They will sleep. A lot. And I'll feel the pull of a cozy chair and good book all day. Hence the perfect day association I guess. Maybe one day in this life I'll actually get to spend one of these days that way.

Ahhh, lazy Sunday mornings. There's nothing quite like the couple of extra hours of quiet I get on the weekends because everyone who is home stays up extra extra late on Friday and Saturday nights. I sit around in my pajamas, drinking enough coffee to give me the shakes and make me break out into a sweat. Throw the dogs outside so I don't hear them whining at each other. Play a thousand or so games of Spider Solitaire on the computer.

Life is good.

I forgot to run the clocks up before I went to sleep last night. It was quite a shock to wake up at ten til 8 and go straight to make coffee and have it be pretty near 9:30 by the time it finished brewing and I sat down at the computer. Thank goodness the computer automatically adjusts or I'd have sailed right on through the day without realizing I was an hour behind on everything. DOH.

The weekend has shaped up to be pretty nice in spite of cold nights and windy days. Good thing too because this afternoon is packed full of yardwork to be done. I have an overwhelming need to go to Lowes. I'm so desperate to start projects in the new house I'm about ready to don my overalls and begin work here in this house. I hate waiting.

I hate the time change too. One pot of coffee started at 8:00 and here it is almost 12:30 and I'm still in my pjs. I'm afraid I don't have the luxury my family enjoys of being able to park myself on the couch and pretend I have maid and butler service. I must get moving on.

Up too early

I am destined to never, never, NEVER get a full 8 hours of sleep. Never. For, oh, about the last 10 or 12 years I've lived on 4, maybe 5 hours of sleep a night max. It is beginning to get to me, I think, because here lately, I can sit right down and fall asleep at the drop of a dime. Not that I ever get to, but I could. Last night I just couldn't stand it. I was on the bed reading a book when my husband walked in and asked what time it was. "It's 8:30," I yawned.

I can remember him turning on the television and whining that Enterprise came on at 8:00 instead of 9:00 and I remember a sigh of relief when he found out that apparently they just threw a repeat on before the regularly scheduled program. But I never heard one word of the show. Didn't finish the chapter in my book either. I just snoozed. For seven whole glorious hours I slept and then at 3:45 my eyes flew open like I was afraid I had overslept. I looked at the clock and pretty near giggled. All that good sleep and I could stay in bed for near 2 more whole hours! It wasn't happening though. By 4:00 I had rolled over so many times trying to get comfortable again that even my dog jumped up and left the bed in favor of the empty couch where she could actually get some rest.

It's so not fair.

So here I sit with an hour left before I have to start waking the girls for school. I've done a load of laundry and one is dry and waiting to be folded. I've filed all the paperwork on my desk and I can see wood on both sides of the computer. There's a fresh, though a bit too strong, pot of coffee in the caraffe beside me. I'm even dressed to the shoes (waving to Martha Fly By) but really all I wanted was that other hour of sleep. I guess that means I'll be snagging it around 2:00 when school is over because I'm just not meant to have it any other way.