Needing a little stress relief I decided to take a walk. Just my music and me. I should have taken a camera because this could have been a photo essay of EPIC proportions!
Oh, I should also mention that I also took with me an insulated cup with a built in straw ( a sippy cup of sorts) full of slushy alcoholic lemonade.
I learned:
- We have a REALLY big neighborhood with streets I didn't even know existed. You know how on a map, Washington DC is only about 6 inches from Florida? Yeah, that. I knew my house had to be around the next corner BUT IT WASN'T!
- It's HOT when you're walking 49864938 miles. I had sucked all the liquid out of my slushy about 2 blocks in and was cussing my damn insulated cup that refused to melt the ice into something that would travel up the straw.
- Geez, our neighborhood has A LOT of dogs. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. barked at me as I was walking by. I turned up my music and kept walking. Oh, and stray cats BITE! They look like they're gonna be all friendly but NO! Luckily none broke the skin because I just know one probably had rabies!
- Which brings me to, just because you can't hear a car honking behind you ( because Elton John is singing Bennie and the Jets in your ear, loudly) DOESN'T mean it's not there. The drivers lips were moving when I looked up. I don't read lips but something tells me he wasn't being very nice.
- It's also apparently not appropriate to stand in front of someone elses house and breath deeply for several minutes because they are grilling steak that smelled like HEAVEN. I ran a little bit when the front door opened.
- If your garage door is open and there isn't enough room for daylight to shine through, I'm gonna assume you're a hoarder and might be calling TLC as we speak.
- A lot of cars in my neighborhood have parts held on with duct tape/ clear packing tape or some other non-auto adhesive.
- I also was briefly educated about the food chain. There was a hawk flying over head. Awwww, nature. Until I noticed a GIANT frog dangling from his talons (I learned that word from Napoleon Dynamite. Education at it's finest). At first I thought it was circling to pick my bones dry when I died of heat exhaustion and thirst. But no, it chose the frog over me so YEA!
- Finally, I'd like to tell my Home Owners Association to SUCK IT because our house does not have silk, plastic or wooden flowers "planted" in our yard. Nor do we have plastic chlorine tablet buckets posing as flower pots with weeds growing higher than the flowers. Our house is practically the Taj Mahal of our neighborhood compared to what I witnessed.
Next time I'm definitely taking a camera. And water!
Edited because I also remembered that I should always put money in my pocket when I walk because I passed the ice cream truck twice!
I think most people do things without really knowing why they do them.
I've never been really religious. Sure I have faith and God knows it has gotten me through the darkest times of my life. But I'm not sure that that faith is Catholicism as much as just accepting and trusting that somewhere there is someone responsible for and bigger than everything.
I pray for things that sometimes don't happen, which in hindsight is perfect because I wouldn't have met and married my sweetie if the prayers I said at the time had been granted. Or maybe they were granted the way I meant them but not the way I voiced them in my head. The prayers I've said in recent years (the most important of my life) have been granted exactly as I asked for them. I pray in the bathtub (What? God doesn't care where I'm talking to him from) or in the car but never in a church.
I spent many Sunday mornings with my Grandma and Grandpa at church but it was more to be with them than because I wanted to go to church. We could have been sitting at a McDonald instead of church and I probably would have felt the same way. Maybe whatever faith I do have came to me on those Sundays?
I have a crucifix in my living room that was a gift from my Grandparents and one in our bedroom that was given to us after the death of my father-in-law. I look at them often but not so much as a religious beacon but as part of the memories that mean so much to me.
My oldest son has taken to wearing a rosary as a necklace. It's a beautiful rosary but it kinda bothers me that it's worn as a piece of jewelry than prayed to as it is intended. I don't even know how to say the rosary so why it bothers me I'm not sure. Yeah, I could google it and I'm sure there is some person on YouTube that will explain how to say the prayers associated with the rosary but in my mind it wouldn't make God anymore likely to hear me than if I was sitting at the kitchen table talking to Him.
He hears me anyway.
I listen as he breathes evenly and slips into sleep. Cherishing every night that we share the same bed.
I watch the rise and fall of his chest. Sometimes placing my hand gently on him just to feel his heart beat.
I breathe in his scent and thank God that He allowed him to drop into my life when I least expected it but when it was perfectly timed.
Thirteen years ago today we entwined our lives and hearts together. Marrying not only each other but our children. Blending them together so that his became mine and mine became his. Our children. Our lives together.
No lavish wedding (been there, done that). Just us, a small group of family and friends and the knowledge that we had each found the person that made both of us better. Hoping to grow it into the makings of a great love story. And we have.
I've learned so much about myself in the years since we both decided to enter our second marriages on April 1, 1998. We've shared our hopes and dreams. Our fears and the challenges of our pasts.
Promises made to each other that our hands will always find the others as we walk side by side. Facing whatever the future holds.
Often he holds my head above water when I feel as though I am unable to do it myself. When I'm unsure of when the blues will move away enough to let me breathe and not feel as though I'm suffocating. He makes me feel safe and holds me without saying a word.
I never question that our commitment to each other is forever and that we will grow old together.
Happy Anniversary Sweetie!
Apparently my ability to dress myself is questionable.
This morning I chose to wear a filmy, peach colored, cotton top with lace accents and short sleeves with jeans. Cute and work appropriate for casual Friday.
Despite my ability to fully fill any cup size, I also have some cute bras. This morning I selected a white one with a lavender ribbon trim on the top of each side. A safe choice, I thought.
I looked in the mirror before I left for work. It was early and the room was kinda dark-ish. I didn't see any errant dryer sheets or random sock attached to me by static so I thought it safe to declare myself suitable to leave for work.
Later this morning as I was washing my hands in front of the mirror in the restroom, I looked up and my eyes I saw this-
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| Hello, lavender trim. |
My brain however saw this-
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| Hello boobs with brows! |
For the first time ever I was extremely glad that very little jiggling was going on in there because waggling brows over my boobs could have traumatized me for life.
I spent the rest of the day sweating in my long sleeve cardigan sweater. Pulled tightly closed every time I left my desk.
Note to self: Stop dressing in the dark! Oh, and buy more nude bras.
I think I'm glad that I didn't give birth to any girls. It's easier to hide a not so great body image from boys. I would feel terribly guilty if I caused a daughter to have a less than amazing body image because of the way I see myself.
When I look in the mirror, all I see is what I wish desperately that I could change.
Clear skin where there isn't any. A peaches and cream complexion that was never mine.
Rolls where there should be curves. Baby weight that is 14 plus years old. I'm beginning to think maybe it's not baby weight after all.
Appropriate curves that I've been waiting to develop since I was about 12 years old. I'm pretty sure it's too late to think the boob fairy will be visiting me now.
I could go on and on.
I bought a bikini the other day. It took more than a little prodding from my sweetie. I was looking for a bathing suit that covered as much as possible with enough spandex to securely fasten EVERYTHING in place. I tried his choice on and he liked it so I bought it.
What I really want is to see in the mirror the image that my sweetie sees when he looks at me. I'm really glad that love is blind because he keeps me from running to the closest plastic surgeon and mortgaging my house to make the me that he sees.
When I gave birth to my oldest son all I could think was please let me remember to feed him. I had a hamster and several fish that didn't fare so well on my ability to remember that they needed to eat.
When he was 6 years old I figured I was getting pretty good at keeping him alive I should have another one. After all I only had to feed them for 18 years. Little did I know, feeding them would be the easy part. And I don' t have any idea why I was delusional enough to think that at 18 years old someone flips a magic switch and they no longer need to eat.
I'm not patting myself on the back just yet but it's worth noting that neither of them starved to death (despite my inability to boil water or cook anything outside of the microwave).
Today I went to yet another parent/teacher conference for Nick. As he and I wound our way through a jungle of teenagers to the safety of the guidance office we passed a boy with his tongue so far down a girls throat that he must have been trying to lick her liver. I wanted to pull them apart and demand their parents phone numbers so that I could enlighten them on the self, sex education class that was going at the bottom of the stairs after school. Except that could have been my kid.
A few years ago I had a friend who's son graduated from high school and moved into a college dorm. Her biggest concern was that he would fall asleep with his contacts in and she wouldn't be there to wake him up and remind him to take them out before he went to bed. That seemed silly. Except now Chris is looking at apartments with friends and all I can think is who's going to check on him while he's sleeping and make sure he is still breathing. I spent a lot of years making sure I kept him alive and now he could just stop breathing and I wouldn't know it!
I don't expect anyone to understand why I check on my 14 and 20 year old sons every night (sometimes several times) to see if they're breathing, but any time I wake up at night I do. I'd say that being a mother takes away all rationale but I think it's just me.
Raising kids is HARD!
Much harder than keeping goldfish or hamsters alive.
I have a TV. A really nice BIG SCREEN in HD. It's great for episodes of Glee in all it's glory and occasionally a marathon of Toddlers and Tiaras. I have a DVR to catch every important episode of all my TLC channel favorites (I hardly ever miss an episode of 19 Kids and Counting, I have priorities people). Except that the screen is BLACK. Oh, and it doesn't have any sound. Pretty much, it won't turn on. But it looks really nice sitting on our semi-dusty, especially for that size TV, table with the couches strategically place for optimum viewing.
Good news! We bought the extended warranty.
Except that the part that we might need (they haven't actually sent anyone out to look at it) is on back order. For how long, we asked. The minion that works for God knows what company tells us "we're not really sure". It's been ordered but the company can't send it because it's on back order. Straight from the script that is sitting in front of her (probably in some third world country). Okay, not really she was in some call center in South Dakota where all her scripts are carefully slid into plastic sleeves for easy reference. Dead end.
We bought the TV at Target so in a futile attempt to keep my head from spinning around like the scene from The Exorcist my sweetie calls them. I know they wouldn't be able to offer any more assistance but I wanted him to call someone else. ANY ONE ELSE WHO DIDN'T HAVE A SCRIPT IN FRONT OF THEM! He's a smart man. When my eyes are flashing from green to black he doesn't generally question my craziness.
The Target lady says they have 3 or 4 days (REALLY, WHICH IS IT??) to determine when the part will be available. In his genius, he says, or what? She says or to get us a new TV. I had him remind her that we missed the Super Bowl (not really, we didn't watch it and we have other TV's). Also that Glee is on tonight, which is much more important than the Super Bowl and that I am being force to watch it on a 32 inch TV. Which is today's equivalent of a 12 inch black and white of 20 years ago! I gotta say she almost mustered up some sympathy. Maybe she is a Gleek too.
So, I guess for the next few days I'll live like a caveman and watch my other TV. But if nothing happens by the time Glee is on again, HEADS WILL ROLL!
