First Real Haircut

It was bound to happen eventually, but I was still surprised when my girl told me that she wanted to get her hair cut yesterday. Intially I resisted. I have been the primary caretaker of that hair since she was a baby, and I loved it. But, she IS eight years old and it is her hair. The long hair was beautiful, but not very easy to take care of. It will be easier for her to take care of now. I think she is so cute with her new doo!

This is being sent to "Locks of Love"

It is really and truly winter out there again tonight.  Today it really snowed, the roads got bad, and the wind blew hard.  It was the first blizzard of the season.  It's still new enough that the novelty hasn't worn off;  I'm not minding it at all.  

much ado

I really should be making dinner right now instead of writing a blog post.  I really should be buying groceries so I can start dinner pretty soon instead of writing this blog post.  Instead I am sitting here, perusing the internet,  and listening to my kids making crazy noise outside of the house (outside lest the crazy infect me too).  I'm thinking it's a pizza night. 

It's already getting dark outside.  Yesterday was daylight savings in the direction of falling back, which is much easier than springing forward.  I have nothing against falling back, but I hold a huge vendetta against springing forward as that one hour of stolen sleep takes me about 6 weeks to adjust to every year.  One can not fall back as an option every time, however.  Apparently, we can't just leave time alone either. 

Things have quieted down around here lately.  I'm super busy still, but the lack of any current trauma has me floundering.  What in the world is there to do if I can't be obsessing about anything specific?  My monkey mind can't even seem to drudge up imaginary things to worry about at the moment.  What in the world am I supposed to write about?!? 

While I ponder, I thought I might post some pictures I took this fall at my friend Deana's place:

Cool Old Car:  Pretty sure my Dad would approve

What is it with me and rusty old chains... sure there must
be some deeper meaning here. 

Little Blue Eyed Horsie

Horse striking a mysterious and nonchalant pose

Some Pictures That Made Me Smile This Week

I have a lot of friends and family who are on crazy awesome vacations right now.  That sounds pretty nice.  Someday I will go to Istanbul and Greece. 

I have a friend who is writing a newspaper column and doing a crazy writing challenge of like 1600 words a day for a month.  I am super impressed and inspired.

I have a friend who responded to a stressful situation by tiling the walls to her laundry room and doing a complete redo on her art room.  This too inspires me.

Now that basic order has been restored again, I need to add some excitement back into this mix; the final ingredient to surviving winter once again.

One of my favorite blogs- Hyperbole and a Half

I am saving this picture- a sweet find!  Ammunition in the mental game that is poker.  :)

Laundry, Schedules and Other Interesting Topics

Been meaning to update in here for awhile, but actually being able to find the time and the desire and the words to write down has been beyond me for weeks.  So, it is 2:37 AM, a time when I should be snuggled up in bed, toasty and asleep.  For some reason my brain decided to snap back to attention at 1:30 AM.  Instead of fighting it, I came out into the living room thinking I would be super woman and write something in here.  Instead I started doing the inevitable Internet surfing, in which I find myself looking at random pictures of Maine Coons and catching up on my favorite blogs written by other people. 

Tomorrow I don't go to work until noon.  This house is a WRECK.  I have ambitious plans of doing many loads of laundry, cleaning everything, vacuuming and scrubbing and making this place sparkle all before I leave the house.  If nothing else, I will make a big enough dent in the wreckage so that when I walk through the door upon returning from work, I won't get that fight or flight response I had today when I got home.

I was so on top of all of this too!  For the last couple of weeks I have been following a schedule religiously.  There are days for working for the business to chip away at the list our accountant gave me and balance QB. Days for cleaning the house and doing laundry. This all mixed in with working at my part time job and getting back into my regular running/exercise schedule, while still making sure the kid's homework is done, their rooms are being cleaned, groceries are bought, and meals are created.  Things were under control!!  I was giving myself pats on the back for the consistent organization that I'd accomplished in my life for many many days in a row. 

This weekend my dad got really sick and had to be hospitalized.  I spent most of the weekend over there with him, trading off and on with my siblings until he felt well enough to leave today.  He still doesn't feel awesome, but he's happy to be out of the hospital (he's staying at my sister's house for now).  It was a pretty chaotic weekend for all of us.  Lots of sleep deprivation and taking care of things more important than laundry and cleaning stuff.  Oh well, those things always wait for me.

Besides the craziness of this weekend, I am feeling better (since my last couple of blog posts).  The vitamins, candida cleanse, running, and getting rescheduled in life all seem to have finally kicked in.  Just in time for winter, which was what I hoped would happen.  I think I will survive in one piece now.  Another thing that I just started about two and a half weeks ago (with Shannon) is a workout called Body Pump.  It is a brutal workout that engages all muscle groups with thousands of reps to music for about an hour just a couple times a week.  I feel so much mentally clearer since I started going.  The hour of pain is definitely worth it.

Different topic... We took the kids to a pool party last night.  Lots of their (and our) friends were there, and it was super fun.  A great way to avoid being at home on halloween night!  Mental note: must do this again next year.

Well, this has been a lot of rambling.  It's been fun, but I think I am tired now.  Gonna go to bed and hope for a fabulous four hours of sleep before I get up again and start kicking butt (maybe) and get reschedulized.

One Year Ago Today

He Will Call 

Job 14:13-15 (Song 111)

Life, like a mist, appears for just a day,

Then disappears tomorrow.

All that we are can quickly fade away,

Replaced with tears and sorrow.

If a man should die, can he live again?

Hear the promise God has made:

He will call; the dead will answer.

They shall live at his command.

For he will have a longing

for the work of his own hand.

So have faith, and do not wonder,

for our God can make us stand.

And we shall live forever,

As the work of his own hand.

Friends of our God, though they may pass away,

Will never be forsaken.

All those asleep who in God's memory stay,

From death he will awaken.

Then we'll come to see all that life can be:  Paradise eternally.



Art by Kloe



My Babies as Babies

This one is Derrick playing with Kloe when she was just a little mite, and Derrin running in to tell good news about potty training success:)



This one is when Derrin was three years old. He's telling me about what happens at the 'Lition Derby'. FAVORITE.VIDEO.EVER

Adele- Someone Like You

love this song so much...

October Feelings

It's funny; if any of you were to be standing in front of me and ask how I am doing right now, I would tell you I am doing fine.  And I am.  I'm working at my job again (and that is a good thing), my laundry is mostly done, and my house isn't too messy. I'm off of that horrible diet so I can eat chocolate again, and my kids are not hating school or their new teachers.  Derrick and I are doing fine.

And yet, every time I sit down to write lately, it is sad.  There is a disconnect somewhere.  There is 'the fine me', sitting here writing.  I feel pretty good, no headache, don't feel like crying, don't feel upset or mad or really any negative emotion.

Then there is the 'three o'clock in the morning me' that wakes up every single night and thinks and thinks.  Lots of anxiety.  Am I doing enough?  Am I trying hard enough?  Am I being a good enough friend?  Good enough mother? Good enough wife? Sister and daughter?  Human being? Anxiety over past mistakes.  Anxiety that I will never be good enough for anything.  That I will never be as strong as I should be.

And then there is the 'me when I am by myself at home, on my couch, by myself'.  Everything feels pretty futile.  I have 'what is the point' mentality.  Of course I know what the point is.  But there is only a 'point' if I am strong enough and good enough.  And it feels like I fall on my face pretty much all of the time. 

Then I'm back to feeling fine.  Fine is a good place to be.  But it is unreasonable for me to just expect to sail through this month (or life in general) and just get to feel fine.  In fact, I can't think of even one friend who isn't going through something really hard right now and having their own struggle.  This just happens to be my own particular struggle.

Since the middle of September, every day corelates to what was happening at this exact time last year.  We went to our assembly in the end of September, and it reminded us that that was the first assembly Mom couldn't go to because she was just so sick.  September 28th was the day Derrin turned 11, and it reminded me of calling him last year from Mom's house to ask him what being 10 felt like.  Last weekend was the anniversary of the first time we gave her the strong pain medication patch that took away her pain but also her ability to talk.  And now every day is a memory of a day in a string of days that progressively became darker and darker.

This time last year was one of the hardest my family has ever gone through.  I can't describe what it felt like to watch Mom fading away.  I remember looking in the mirror and seeing a look in my eyes I'd never seen before, and I couldn't make that look go away no matter how hard I tried.  It was so surreal to see real suffering in my own eyes.  It was heartbreaking to see that suffering in the eyes of every other person losing her too.

When she died, there was grief, but it ended that horrible period of time, that month of unendurable suffering.  We grieved, but we didn't have to exist in a world where our mom was hurting anymore.  There was a relief in that.  I never had to walk into that house to see her hurting on that bed again. 

It was like the fire that was cancer had taken five years to reach us as we were all bound above it, knowing what the inevitability was.  We fought as hard as we could to put the fire out, but one day it reached our feet.  Then it took a month to consume our bodies as we dangled there, not able to do a thing to put it out, just twisting in pain as we burned.  And then the fire had nothing left to consume.  And we were burned and scarred and hurting, but we weren't on fire anymore, and I was relieved. 

And every day I woke up and I wasn't on fire anymore, I was relieved. 

I still don't know that I'm done feeling relieved, and the fire has been out for a year. 

Maybe we are just far enough on the other side, that under the scar tissue old nerves are starting to reawaken. We spent a lot of time watching the fire build under us. That sort of thing really takes a lot of attention. Fear is a powerful thing.

The first six months after, I didn't stop moving or running.  Running makes me feel better.  It is a tangible thing that I can do to FIGHT despair and guilt and depression.  It makes me focus on and appreciate the fact that I can BREATHE, that I have this body that is still alive and has the ability to feel good, feel pain, struggle and sweat.  I have a heart in this body that still pounds when I make it. 

I haven't been running so much these last couple of months.  I need to get out there again and remind myself that I am alive and breathing.

I haven't even really done any photography this year, not like before.  Maybe that is another thing that needs to be picked up again. 

Writing helped before too.  It's easier just to write about what's going on in our family life, and that serves a purpose, but when I started THIS particular blog, it was called 'The Lamentations of a Girl from Paradise'.  Sometimes lamenting needs to be allowed.  In my life I can't just talk about this stuff.  There needs to be a place to put it.  Tonight it is going here.