When all else fails, aim for the stars.

In knee deep snow on Monday, I found myself hanging out laundry to dry. The wind-chill was 27 degrees, but the sun shone brightly for the first time in a week. The kids were running out of warm pajamas to wear, and I thought I'd see what I could do about it. My little hair-brained idea worked quite well! I should actually be out there again today doing my own; this promises to be our last sunny day this week, with some sort of precipitation, as yet to be decided, heading for us again in time for Christmas. The weathernerds can't seem to make up their minds; maybe snow, maybe rain, maybe ice. I now thoroughly understand why, one year, one of the weathermen showed up on tv with what looked like a busted lip, which he never conveniently mentioned. He was the same guy that, during the blizzard of '93, swore we would only get two inches of snow. Twelve hours later, we had 3 feet of the stuff.

Surviving The Storm

The phone rang at 6:07 on Friday morning. I was in bed, and the phone was in the other room; I let it ring while I snuggled deeper under the blankets, and try to let sleep enfold me again. I figure that it's the school's robot calling to say there was no reason to get up out of bed that early to get the kids off to school - there was a snow storm coming; hell, it was already here. I always find it frustrating that they would call that early to wake you up and tell you not to bother waking up. I guess most people would be about to wake up for the day at that time, anyway; I am not most people though, and the irony isn't lost on me. I distantly hear my children stumbling around the kitchen about 30 minutes later; a while after that, I hear our car pulling into the driveway - my husband returning from work. At some point, I feel him snuggle into bed with me, and I drift off to sleep again.

Confidence is ... only something someone else can give you?

I have been to college 3 times, and a correspondence school once. I have one diploma from high school; no degrees, no certificates. My therapist says I didn't "quit" - I merely stopped doing things that I didn't want to do in the first place. I have been taking some time to mull that over; she said it three weeks ago, and I'm still wondering if she's just said it so she wouldn't have to say, "congratulations, you're a failure!"

Dirt and Destruction

I survived the week.

I started cleaning last weekend in preparation for my guests arriving for Thanksgiving. Somehow, my house managed to get filthy since the last time we cleaned it in earnest; places and things you generally tend to overlook during the day, or perhaps you might actually look at it every day, but the filth becomes sort of mundane instead of openly repulsive. Dust bunnies and smeary fingerprints, little crayola scribbles via the two small feral children you share your home with. All of these things must be hunted down and erradicated when company is coming, including the wild streak your children have cultured in their small beings.

Eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow you die.

It is said to be the philosophy of Epicureans; it is also an amalgamation of scriptures from The Bible. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die." Surely this quote is also an apt descriptor for America's first Thanksgiving Day, and every Thanksgiving Day that has followed, with much thanks to the joys of the dysfunctional family. We gather to break bread, and end up wanting to break someones neck; snap it like the wishbone on the turkey. Happy holidays! Well, that's another oxymoron for another time.

My squealing inner fangirl, let me show you it.

If you've read my profile, two random factoids you may know about me is that a] I am a photographer and b] that I am a music lover. I am not a musician because, even though I have heavily flirted with the piano since I was about 2 years old, I was gifted with short, stubby fingers and a basic lack of the ability to keep timing. I am intensely jealous of those who can play the way they're supposed to, but also thoroughly awed by their talent. I am always toying with the idea of learning guitar, but then I balk at the idea of calloused fingers. *shrug* I can't have my cake and eat it, too; I have come to accept it... for now.

We don't *do* F2F anymore.

My friend Kari recently made an entry in her blog about how people just aren't talking on the phone anymore, as in - the internet is the new all-encompassing social hub. I have to admit, I didn't really think about it much because I am not a phone person. I'm not even really a "face to face" person, to be honest; every relationship I've ever had outside of my husband and my kids, I have let slip through my fingers. It's not that I'm not interested [well, in lots of cases, I'm sure], but ... uhm, I don't have a therapist just for kicks. I have issues - probably more than your local magazine rack. I have them for valid reasons, but I have reached a point in my life where it is time to put those issues on a shelf and get on with things.

Where'd you get your driver's license, Kmart?

My mother put me behind the wheel of a Jeep Cherokee when I was 15. I'm not sure what year the Jeep was, but the peeling brown metalic paint allowed us to dub the thing "Coppertone." To a 15 year old girl, it was a massive behomoth to maneuver through the backwood roads of our county. Couple that with the impromptu tiny wooden bridges without railing, and well...a girl could imagine driving herself and her mother into the most convenient creek bed or cliff side. The radio cranked out whatever handy tune was snatched by the satellite, and this girl tried to keep the brown hulk of peeling metal between the lines.

I was temporarily out of order.

I used to be pretty good at saying the right thing when someone needed to hear it. I have been the go-to girl for advice, anecdotes, a shoulder to lean on. But, my friends, I saw all of that change last night. I sat, horrified, as I saw my fingers type all of the wrong words, incapable of shutting the fuck up. After I apologized, I ended up slinking off to bed, feeling like a giant asshole. I still feel like a giant asshole this morning over it, and hope that my friend will forgive me for scaring her worse instead of being the rational voice I usually am, or try to be.

I need to get a life.

I am the proud new owner, for the second time in my life, of the phrase "my therapist told me...." Actually, it's kind of the reverse; I sit in the chair and tell her everything for an hour every week. On the mornings of "therapy day," I wake up with a giant knot in the center of my stomach and an overwhelming urge to have a panic attack - the symptoms of a hardcore, long-term "do-it-yourselfer" that is coming to grips with the fact that I can no longer do-it-myself at this time. Someone who has awoken in the cold sweat nightmare of discovering that, despite my insightful and honest approach, I have become a victim of aimless existence rather than kicking ass and taking names. I have become accustomed to allowing things to happen instead of making them happen.

How did that happen?

There's Nowhere To Go

My children are on "fall break", which is some random point in time roughly 2 months after school starts in which everyone decides that it is time for a four day weekend. I don't know if this happens all over the country, or if it's just us, but I think it's a relatively new occurance; I certainly don't remember being gifted with arbitrary long weekends. Even if I had, there would have been not much to do anyway, except sit at home and make a nuisance of myself or spend the weekend at a friend's house if their parents were braver souls than my own.

Book Stores Mean Civilization

You know what I would really appreciate having in this town? An honest to God national chain book store. We have NONE. I can't think of a single one in our entire county. Who thought that would be a good idea? The only places to shop for new books are Wal-Mart, Kmart, random grocery stores, or the Christian book store on Main Street [if, indeed, it's even still there]. Then we have a used book store behind Main Street which is basically just a very small hole in the wall with books lined from floor to ceiling - you literally have to walk sideways to get through various parts of this place. I think it was built and stocked based on Stephen King's book, Insomnia; more specifically, Atropos's underground haven, crammed to the gills with the magpie-like collection of objects from random people that crossed his path. It smells musty and vaguely of night sweat. Other than that, we have the various county libraries. They are quite small, needless to say; we only have a population of a little over 10 thousand residents. But I am not one that likes borrowing, anyway; I am a chronic re-reader, and need the option of selecting any number of books at random off of my own book shelves. I may read it in a couple of days worth time, or it may take me a month--I don't care much for deadlines or late fees.