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Sunday, May 02, 2004
nap. or not.
Things which just woke me from the nap I was attempting to take, at my husband's suggestion (not because I was cranky, just because he was being nice):
- The cordless phone being dropped. Four times, each just... as... I... was... dropping... off. By my son, who wasn't using it, just fiddling with it.
- My daughter bringing me kitties.
- Said daughter running in and out through the screen door five hundred gazillion times.
- My husband yelling at our daughter to tell her not to go in and out through the screen door so much, she'd wake Mommy.
- Daughter needing her bottom wiped, with Daddy nowhere to be found.
- My son walking into my room to ask me, without preamble, where his father was. (answer: apparently, he was outside about to crank up the lawn mower. And my window was open.)
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Friday, April 09, 2004
just a pity party, don't mind me
Oh my goodness what a mood change I've had today. I can hardly believe tonight that I am the same person who was all chirpy and yay-i'm-going-on-a-date two days ago. Mainly I think it's been brought on by some interpersonal problems I've had yesterday and today (including the most vicious argument I have ever had with my husband, and it was all my fault, so, in the words of Rex, "Great! Now I have GUILT!" as well). This evening I cried and cried, and instead of the way I usually feel after I cry -- which is sort of washed-clean and ready to start fresh -- I feel like I've emptied myself of everything except this malevolent, living, growing, reptilian THING that's coiled in my chest. This THING makes me snappy and crabby and blah and I feel like I never want to speak again or be involved in anything or try anything. And at the same time I feel like I'm betraying myself by being this way... somewhere back inside is the real me, and she's really pissed off at this imposter. --------Friday, March 05, 2004
the next project on every programmer's to-do list
Since there's no polite way to tell friends, "Please don't send me any email forwards that are stupid. I don't mind the rest of them, but the stupid ones make me want to throw darts at you," someone ought to design an email filter that would weed out anything (ANYTHING!) that has an animated gif of a squirrel tapping its foot and playing the harmonica, to the tune of an embedded MIDI file written in 1994 on someone's XT. I don't know why this hasn't already been developed.
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Friday, February 27, 2004
the depravity of inanimate things
In Anne of the Island, when Anne is meeting her romantic mysterious dark-eyed suitor during a sudden rain shower, she laughingly says, [and I'm quoting from memory here, but having read this series, oh, about five bazillion times, I think I can be pretty accurate] "It is when my umbrella turns inside out that I am convinced of the depravity of inanimate things." Well, Miss Anne, consider yourself lucky. And not just because Mr. Mysterious just walked into your life, either. Here's what's happened to my "inanimate things" in the past twelve hours. It is a conspiracy, I think.
- My sewing machine went batty and decided to start pulling about five inches of bobbin thread for every stitch. This is in the middle of a huge jeans-quilt project I've been meaning to do for, oh, say, six years, and finally started this week. I am trying all manner of things to fix it and still may succeed, as I'm putting myself through an emergency sewing machine repair course consisting of taking the bobbin carriage out, fiddling with a screw adjustment, putting it back in, and growling with rage when the problem still exists, over and over. This makes three sewing machines I own, zero of which function properly.
- My digital camera, my precious free digital camera which has so enriched my already-happy life, decided that it didn't want to do that picture-taking thing anymore. It's sulking, and instead of opening its shutter-whatever nice and wide and taking a nice bright picture, say, like this one, it slouches and whines and rolls its eyes and halfheartedly does whatever it's supposed to do in a very slacking manner and takes a picture like this or this. I am all dismayed. Stupid lame camera.
- Our plumbing has gone a little haywire. The drains are gurgling and the washer drains into the bathtub and stuff like that. This is a good time to be renting, say I. But a bad time to want to run the dishwasher and the washing machine and flush the toilet all at the same time.
- My DVD player came on all by itself this morning. Last night I had done the neato trick where you push STOP once instead of twice and you can then start the movie at that same place anytime you want to. Then this morning it just came on, at the same place, with nobody in the room. It woke me up, because even when the TV's off, the sound for the DVD player goes through our stereo speakers. It was all well and good waking up to the more romantic parts of "Pride and Prejudice", it was a little freaky. My rational self says that for some strange reason the DVD player is supposed to start up again twelve hours after it's stopped. But my irrational mind is rather sure that it must be possessed by demons.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
missing, one ordinary self
There is a short story in a compilation called Irish Girls About Town called "The Twenty-Eighth Day". Most anyone, especially women, can probably figure out based just on the title what it's about, using a bit of creative thought. And that is so ME today -- except, because God must have extra lessons in humility and patience to teach me, this day is actually the twenty-fourth day. Yeah, don't you wish you were me. As for me, I am just wishing that tomorrow would get here so that I can get over being this crabby b***h with a tension headache that goes all the way to my shoulders and a raging case of Social Anxiety Disorder (not helped by the cluster of spots on my cheek that looks, I swear, exactly like Orion's belt and sword. And I never get spots on my cheeks, only my chin, upper lip, and forehead. What is UP with this?) and a few stray pounds of bloat hanging around, and change back into my ordinary self. My ordinary self isn't perfect -- she's got a moderately low yell threshold and she's pretty lazy and not very good-looking overall -- but today, I really, really miss her. Come back, Ordinary Self. Please come back.
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Monday, November 24, 2003
this is not a cheery day.
Here's one for me to show the kids when they get in an "I can't wait to grow up so I can do exactly what I want" mood.
What I want to do right now:
Send the kids with their grandparents, or have T arrive home four hours early for some special reason and take over. Sit with a diet Coke and something warm and savory to eat (bowl of chili?) and read a book next to a cozy fire. OR, drive with the radio up nice and loud, go to Barnes and Noble, sit in Starbucks with a caramel brownie and a caramel macchiato and read. Oh yeah. The second one.
What I have to do instead:
Somehow manage to fold and put away about four loads of laundry AND drive 50 minutes with two very crabby children in the car, listening to them nitpick each other, with the radio quietly playing something kid-friendly (no veggietales, though, I put my foot down at that). Buy some groceries and some household stuff while keeping them from making too much noise killing each other in the stores. Hang my head in shame because I always swore I wouldn't be one of those mothers who brings unruly kids out in public. Drive back, unload the car, put stuff away. All within about seven hours.
oh, please, can't I just check myself into a quiet mental hospital instead? sigh. I have that stressed-out cloudy-head-pressure-in-chest kind of feeling that makes me want to go outside and yell and scream. And it compounds itself, because when I feel that way, things that ordinarily don't bother me at all (like my son being physically incapable of moving through a room without making light saber/fighting sounds, just as an example) make me sit here and twitch and freak out. This is not a cheery day. Please pardon the downer, I'm sure I'll be normal tomorrow.
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Tuesday, November 04, 2003
today just sucked
If I were a swearing kind of person I would indulge right now. I have just had a hell of a day (that's about as raunchy as you're gonna hear from me. Except I do say/type "crap" with some frequency also). The previous post pretty much sums up my morning, and then the afternoon got even worse and things didn't really pick up till the evening, when T went out for takeout. Um, yeah, it was that bad, that cheap takeout was a huge pick-me-up.
Today C decided that she loved Daddy better than me. And showed it -- with a vengeance. I didn't do anything wrong -- but I didn't disappear for ten days and then come back with a heap-o-treats either (people who work on fires get famously loaded up with treat-ey goodness, in their lunches and stuff. T always saves his to bring home to the kids). Anyway, the shock of having her insist on DACY every time the possibility arose -- she even wiped off the kiss I put on her owie so that Daddy could kiss it -- was substantial, considering that for the past four years you would think, as far as she was concerned, that I hung the moon and stars just for her. Not that she didn't adore Daddy too -- but I was the healer of wounds, the recipient of kisses, the cuddler in bed. Now I'm apparently just that superfluous woman who lives in our house.
me bitter?
anyway. That wasn't even the worst part of my day. T was grumpy almost all day (something having to do with work, it turns out). I spent half the afternoon hiding myself away to cry and lick my wounds (crying literally, licking metaphorically). Then C and I went to take some chicken giblets (I was roasting a chicken, so as to have cooked chicken tomorrow for chicken enchiladas) to the neighbor's dog, whom C has always adored, and this ordinarily totally calm friendly meek dog bit her. My poor baby, she has scrapes on her face and her arm (which fortunately was inside her long sleeve, otherwise this would be way worse, I think), and bruises, and a newfound terror of dogs, live and in person or otherwise. And I'm afraid she'll have nightmares.
All in all, I'm glad this day is over and I dearly hope tomorrow will be better.
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real value
Bacon, eggs, gravy mix, sausage, milk, and OJ for family's favorite meal: $14.00
Time involved from shopping to starting the dishwasher: 3 1/2 hours
Spending 20 minutes watching everyone bicker ungraciously with each other while eating it: priceless
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Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Why couldn't I have just stayed in bed this morning...?
Today has been an odd mix of good and bad stuff. It reminds me of those stories we used to do in elementary school, where we had to alternate "Fortunately" and "Unfortunately." Here's today in second-grade-ese:
FORTUNATELY, I did not have to drag LT out of bed at an un-Godly hour like I usually do, much to the consternation of T, who thinks we should all be in our places with bright shiny faces at the crack of dawn. However, T isn't the one who's home having to stir that heavily-sleeping enormous boy out of his comfortable bed. And there are plenty of advantages to homeschooling, one of which being that we can start whenever we want to each day.
UNFORTUNATELY, LT dragged me out of bed at 7:30 instead. [grr]
FORTUNATELY, we had plenty of cereal and milk for breakfast, thanks to T's trip to the grocery store last night.
UNFORTUNATELY, both children managed to spill their cereal all over the table within about 30 seconds of each other.
OK, I can't think of a "fortunately" for that one.
School went well, and the kids and I had some good quality time outside. There is one section of our yard which will not grow grass no matter how hard we try to grow it there. I think this is a combination of too much shade, too many tree roots, too clay-ish soil, too much slope, and too lazy lawn-care. Anyway, that area always ends up being The Digging Zone for the kids. This year LT has made an intricate series of canals and islands (since I told him he could not "play river", wherein he digs rivers and islands). At least this year he is more persnickety about mud on his person -- he is his father's child through and through and is becoming more so every day in this regard -- so he prefers the neater method of filling a 2L bottle with water and dumping it down the canals, to last year's mud-hole method wherein he would just turn on the hose and put it at the uphill end of the river. So I sat outside and read a book while he and his willing slave (I mean assistant, I mean sister) dug happily and interrupted me periodically with "look at this!" -- at which I would look, pretend to notice the difference, and go back to my book. Then I had to stop procrastinating and actually (sigh) clean the kitchen. My roll of kitchen trash bags has mysteriously disappeared, so LT "loaned" (little egghead) me one of his trash bags (which I bought for him to make his recycling area neater and easier to deal with... but who's counting...). T called in the middle of me taking out the trash, which is, suffice to say, not the best time to try to have a loving conversation with me. It was such a tense conversation that he called back half an hour later -- he said he was just checking to see if I felt better, but I think he did it to make sure that I was OK and hadn't gone completely psycho and started killing the neighbors or anything newsworthy like that.
Once the kitchen was clean, things were going along pretty well until I had to stop procrastinating again -- I hate that -- this time at the last possible moment when I could start making dinner rolls for our potluck tonight if I wanted to have them done on time. All was going swimmingly until I looked down at the recipe and remembered that I didn't have any eggs. When I made cookies last week I used our last egg and had to send one of the kids down to borrow two from the neighbor ladies, and I didn't want to do that again. And there's no way I could make it to the store and back in time to make the darn rolls. And the restaurant (my very favorite restaurant in the world, have I mentioned that place before? ;) which I was going to call to order a dozen of their scrumpdiddlyumptious rolls to go, since my procrastination had landed me in such hot water, turns out to be closed on Wednesdays. sigh. I guess I'll make garlic bread. But first I have to wait for some actual wearable-outside-the-house clothes to finish in the dryer.
Too bad I couldn't just stay in bed this morning. I need to schedule an illness or something. [g]
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Thursday, October 16, 2003
deliver me from temptation (and Grandma)
I did a bad thing. A very bad thing. While T was gone a couple of weeks ago, I bought chocolate chips, in case the kids and I, in a frenzy of loneliness, felt compelled to drown our sorrows in a batch of homemade goodness. Well, we didn't ever reach that point, so the chocolate chips were still hanging around in the cabinet looking all forlorn and depressed and feeling pretty useless. So yesterday I put them out of their misery. Now, I have to say, there are only a few things I do very, very well, but baking chocolate chip cookies is definitely one of them. So now I have a substantial quantity of chocolatey, chewy, soft, moist goodness sitting on my kitchen counter in a bakery bag whispering, "eat me! come on, just one! it's only 130 calories per cookie! [yes, I do calculate the number of calories in the things I bake; do you have a problem with this?] one more won't hurt you! you can always go for a brisk walk later...." Fortunately my dad was over yesterday and he helped eat a few of them; T took some to work today to share with his boss, also. But still, there are a good three dozen cookies sitting in there beckoning to me. I ate a few yesterday and this morning I caved and had two cookies and a glass of milk for breakfast (with the Special K box looking reproachfully at me the whole time). I am thinking I'll have to take some of them to the neighbors, to lessen the temptation.
I have started a new 9-week challenge for the weight-loss Yahoogroup I'm a part of. My personal goal is to lose a pound a week for the next nine weeks; I didn't want to set myself up for failure by trying for more. This was a great time to have made those cookies, huh. (and don't suggest freezing them; have you ever eaten chocolate chip cookies straight from the freezer? yum!). The weather is supposed to be perfect for walking for the next week. Of course, this doesn't mean I'll actually walk; it just means I'll think I should lose weight just because the weather is so great for walking.
Great, and I just remembered we're eating dinner at my paternal grandmother's house tonight. This means a stringy bland pot roast, boiled potatoes, and vegetables boiled to the point of total limpness and swimming in enough margarine to lubricate a ship's engine. And we won't even go into the whining, or the insistence that SHE will wash the dishes and I am to SIT DOWN, no I may NOT help, followed by her complaints to her county-hired house help and anyone else who will listen tomorrow that "those selfish kids came over for dinner and [insert one: "barely touched the dinner I worked so hard on" or "ate me out of house and home"], and then Rachel wouldn't even help with the dishes afterward, just sat with her kids and watched TV." (item: I hate watching TV). She has been nagging/whining at and about T for weeks, wanting him to come fix some stuff on the RV she never uses, and this was the first time he had available to go over and do it. Great. I had totally forgotten about that until just now. I wonder if I could come down with some debilitating flu in the next eight hours that would get me out of it....
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I'm going crazy; want to come along? Archives | Page 4 of 5
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