Prayer

I'm not a regular to prayer but I can see why people are. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims in New Orleans and Iraq. Always feel at a loss at times like this; wish I could go help.

comments

What is it about the comments feature on these blogs. Although I regularly say I am going to give this new hobby/habit up and go clean the bathrooms, I continue to do it. I guess it fills a need, a void; a need to be creative/ a need to be heard. So i guess that is why when you see that someone has left a comment it is so nice, makes you happy, even makes you smile sometimes.

sleep deprivation

Every morning when i drag myself from bed and into work, i swear that i'm going to go to bed as soon as i get home. Then i get home and i muster up enough energy to get a few things done. Then it's usually time to drive my son to the sport practice of the season. And then it's the worse time of day... dinner time. Once that dilemma is solved, i usually get my second wind and start sweeping the floors, wish i oddly find therapeutic and which i usually do on a daily basis (with a cat and a dog). Then when everyone else goes to bed and i have the place to myself it is far too tempting to stay up. So that is why i am chronically sleep deprived. For some reason i just don't like to go to bed. Anyone else have this problem?

Overwhelmedness

Yes I know that's not a word but I think it should be. Ive said this before, haven't I? You know, the constant state of being overwhelmed. Laundry, cat box, bills, toilets, dust, paper, vacuum, weed, paint, projects,etc. Not enof time in the day, what with having to work and drive the kids to their activities and social engagements. Oh and I forgot, shop, cook, clean up. I always say I could stay up all nite and still not get everything done. For us wannabee perfectionists that is disheartening news - everything will never be in it's place, laundry done, folded, put away. I did skip iron, however; I gave that up years ago.
Just looked up overwhelmed in the dictionary: surge over and submerge, engulf. to over come completely either physically or emotionally. but on a positive note you can be overwhelmed by the enthusiastic reception. One can only hope.

Turmoil

Living with a teenager is hell, especialy if you are the evil stepmom. It's round 3 maybe 4 or 5 of the custody thing between her mom and dad (she's decided she wants to live with us but there is the issue of her finishing her Sr.year there.
At the age of 4 my stepdaughter was in 2 weddings, her mom's and her dad's. I remember one night when I was watching her and we were having dinner, just the two of us, and she said to me calmly, " you're not marrying my Dad, you're marrying L. And my dad's marrying my mom. It's not that she didn't like us then(me and her future stepdad), she just wanted her parents together. When we moved to our second house I don't remember why or what precipitated it but I remember saying to her, you still wish they were together and she said "yes" and we talked about that for a little bit.
I just thought of something, lest I appear the protagonist; her mother and father were not married and not even together any more when we met. Just wanted to clarify that point as not to appear the housewrecker.
Just can't wait for the dust to settle over here.

Full moon

Driving home tonite from the Antigone Rising & John Butler Trio concert in Boston there was a beautiful full moon; now that explains the birtday calamity. But tonite made up for it. We had a great time, was so fun. Luke's first concert and as for me I can't remember my last, yes I can it was Bonnie Raitt before Luke was born so about 13 yrs. ago. Then we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. In the bathroom there was a picture of this guru guy smiling in orange robes that I recognized but couldn't remember his name. The quote under his picture read...
Living is lost in dreaming.
Dreaming is lost in becoming.

The killer bees

The birthday queen was a tad disappointed with her birthday yesterday. I was attacked by a swarm of yellowjackets( man I was right being deathly afraid of bees all my life - did a great job avoiding them til last year when i was stung for the first time) They actually reduced me to a crying blubbering mess that had to be consoled and administered to by my sweet wonderful 11 yr. old boy(he got the ice pack for me). Almost didn't go out to dinner because the 2 Benadryl i took to bring the swelling down almost brought me down.
Then it was like suppose you have a party and no one came. I didn't think anyone read my post but then i found out that 2 old friends did- they just didn't comment. Well there's always next year.
It was just brought to my attention that Madonna, a famous Leo with whom I share a birthday, fell off her horse yesterday and broke her arm. Makes you believe in astrology.

You says its your birthday....well it's my birthday too now

This could be a new meme (The Birthday Meme): My spin on Patry's FIVE THINGS TO DO ON YOUR BIRTHDAY 1. Ok let's face it I'm selfish - I buy myself a present - sometimes more than one. This is a great excuse to buy something you normally wouldn't. And this year I did it up big, i bought myself an Apple ibook laptop ( not to be used by the kids - hopefully) and I can blog at the beach, blog in the car, blog on vaca, blog at baseball and football practice. Blog on the go.
2. Eat cake !! and have seconds if you want, with ice cream!
3. Patry says,"Ask yourself where you came from and where you're going. If the answer is, "I don't know," spoken with marvel and wonder, you're on the right track." Well I have been asking myself this one for a long time and I still haven't got a clue ( i was happy to find out though that this is evidently a good thing and that i'm on the right track - hooray!)
4. Patry says," Thank your mother. Chances are the occasion you're celebrating was a pretty arduous day for her."
Since I can't thank mom or dad anymore I guess I'll have to thank that higher power. Maybe he'll pass it on along to them for me.
5. Do whatever makes you happy! Dance in yr. b-day suit. Drink champagne for breakfast. Celebrate all day, all week, all month if you can get away with it. I'm gonna try.

sometimes you can go home.....

even if just for a little while. Went to the Vineyard (Martha's ) for 2 days. It was a little bit of heaven, except for the tourists. I kept trying to pretend they just weren't there, on my Island. I was so glad when Luke liked it as much as me. I lived there 20 yrs. ago and hadn't been there in 10! and we only live 2 hrs. away(I hour drive to the ferry(45 min ferry ride). Of course it takes a little longer in summer, you have to park yr. car in the next town and take a shuttle to the boat; but it's well worth the trip to the Storybook Island. I always feel like i've left my worries behind when I step onto that Island.

Just another day at the beach

Took Luke & Elizabeth (my friends daughter-who he's been friends with since age 3) to the beach for a late afternoon swim with Jackson. We forgot to bring the long rope that we tie him up to the car with since dogs can't be loose at the beach. So we were forced to hold him on his leash the whole time. Not an easy task. Labs are pure muscle. The kids played with the dog in the water and I tried to keep him from chasing all the throngs of birds that were flying in cool formation over the water. a few minutes later dark clouds formed and it started raining. I guess those birds know there stuff.

blogs, blogs, blogs

Literary vs Personal. I thought I liked the literary ones but turns out the just plan personal ones are more upfront, funny and just plain better. The literary ones tend to be hibrow and boring and oh so self important. The real ones are insightful, thought-provoking, mood-elevating, inspiring, and just damn better.

disco blogger

Developing a bad habit of staying up too late ,workin on posts or reading other peoples blogs. Addictive,just one more blog, one more dance. anyone else have this problem?
well this disco dancer is too tired to blog tonite.

Birth

I've been cheating here lately and just posting old drafts, so here is another one since I am too lazy to finish my vaca post with pictures. But I really don't like the fact that they are not in real time or do not reflect what I am currently thinking about. I am going to try and post not draft in the future. I will have to duke it out with the editor of course.

Jeanette shared her birth story awhile back so I am copycat blogging. I too had an epidurial but I knew I wanted one before I stepped through the door of the hospital. I almost said Epidural when they asked me my name. I have a very low pain threshold ; I never even tolerated menstual cramps very well. My water broke 1st thing before any contractions ;because I was a high risk pregnancy and lived an hr. away from the hospital, we were told to come right in. We were told that we could go to the cafeteria ( but just have a drink or jello). I realized right away that wasn't a good idea. I wanted my room and my bed and I wanted it now. I didn't want to be whimpering and cryin out in the hallways. But getting into my room didn't improve things all that measurably until I got "The Epidural". I was so glad to be pain free that I almost sent my husband out for some bubbly. I had brought music tapes but we never got as far as the mood music. They were now instructing me on pushing this baby out. Only problem was I felt like I was pushing with my shoulders cause I couldn't feel a damn thing below my waist(below my neck, actually). Push what?! So there was the crown of his head and we were not going anywhere. So next thing I knew they're turning the epidural off and I am now in stage 4 or something and the pain is unbelievable. And breathe, forget that, I'm hyperventilating at this point. And my nice nurse had gone off duty and this bitch from hell was not happy with me one bit. I wanted to rip her head off if she told me one more time that I was wasting energy crying/screaming. So there is still no progress and now its been 24 hrs and they are starting to get worried(actually I just think the dr. wanted to go home, cause he went from nice to mean). So now we are moving from the birth/delivery room to a operating room ( just in case they have to do an emergency c-sec.) But first they are trying forceps. Things are getting scary now. So back on goes the Epidural and on the 2nd try they get him out. I am a shaking blubbering mess when they hand me the baby. I will spare you the details on my not an episiotomy.Well I am tired just from reading this, I can't believe I ever actually did it.

just one more load of laundry..

..fore I die ( sounds like a Bob Dylan song.) It's times like these I don't like being a mother.... when I'm sick I don't want to be the mom. I just want to crawl in bed and pull the covers over my head. I wish for the single days when at least if you felt like crap you could just read magazines to take your mind off of how bad you feel. But no matter how bad you feel, (and i felt bad today- let's put it this way if someone would've offered to remove my arm I would've let them), you still have to make dinner or in this case drive to baseball(the driving is the easy part, the hard part is standing around talking to the other parents).
I had another corisone injection in my shoulder and also one in my elbow -that one hurt like hell. Then my arm felt about 100 times worse and I thought,"what the hell did I do that for?" but thankfully it was better the next day. Now I am just praying that it doesn't wear off in 6 wks like last time.( This arm thing has been going on since April). Anyone out there with a nice recovery story from bursitis in the shoulder and tendonitis in the elbow, that will give me some hope?