Despite how I may grumble about this/that/the other thing, I really do know that 99% of it all falls under First World Problems. Doesn’t make it any more fun, but lends a certain perspective when I think I’m going to lose my everlovin’ mind.

1. MacDreamy2 is having an extended visit with the Genius Bar. It’s been crashing and blurping and having random seizures for the last few months. Last Friday night’s Monitor Scramble of Death was the last straw and in it went. I’ve never been so happy to see a big red FAILED splashed across a screen in my life; the logic board was dying, it was a known issue with this make and model, and the repair isn’t going to cost me a cent. That said, it’s been two days and I’m twitchy as hell. I want my baby back, I’m sick of typing with my thumbs. If this little scenario sounds familiar, that’s because it’s deja vu all over again. 
2. Mother Nature is drunk. It was nearly 90 several days ago and last night we had frost. Ruby The New Rhubarb Plant loves this weather, but all my other plants have been commuting between the great outdoors and my sunroom floor. The electric blanket has been put away for the summer, and thus Tom was the very lucky recipient of my ice-cold feet last night. I don’t trust the weather to stay nice anymore, and frankly, Tom Skilling is getting a little too much joy out of these unseasonable temperatures.
3. I’m convinced aliens are abducting me while I sleep. I get a full night’s sleep and still wake up in the morning exhausted. Either that or I need a new pillow.
4. I love my sons to the ends of the earth and back a million times, but I am sick of them. Yes, I said it. And here is why: from the moment I haul my butt out of bed until the moment I drag myself back we are at loggerheads. I have to get J up early to make the bus, and A’s whacked out sleep keeps him up late at night. So I’m not exaggerating in the slightest when I say I’m not getting a break lately.
5. That said, I can not wait for school to get out. No more homework, no more packing lunches, and both boys are going to day camp…and if I get more flute students, even more day camp! A break!
6. Everywhere I look, in every room including the yard, there is a project that is only half-completed or mocking me to start. Tom is at the tail end of his crazybusy season, and we don’t have a free weekend until nearly July. Projects include getting the boys into their own rooms (we’ll miss you, dedicated LEGO room, but they need some personal space), re-landscaping and moving hostas to shadier parts of the yard, building a patio, cleaning out the crawl space so I can find things like tax returns without getting buried in boxes, and organizing the boys’ books so I quit buying books they already own <shaking fist at the uber-awesome Scholastic Warehouse Sale>. Those are only a few of the projects, god help me.
7. I have a dozen blog post ideas on a list/half-written. See #1, #3, #4, and #6 why none of those 12 have yet seen the light of day.
8. I injured my hip digging in the garden last week. Hurts when I sit, stand, walk, use stairs. So basically all the time. I blame my sedentary lifestyle and <coughcough> pounds I need to lose.
9. Just read through a bunch of old posts looking for something; my outlook on life is seriously messed up and has been for years. This is curious and disturbing. I also used to be funnier. That’s just disturbing.
10. It’s official, I need a second crown. I’m so talented that I have cracked TWO teeth from my jaw spasms/TMJ/hard bite guard. Just gonna hold off a few months before getting it fixed.

First world problems. Better than the zombie apocalypse.

Three things stand out from the hellish blur that was selling our house in Colorado. All were of the what the WHAT? variety. The first was our realtor undergoing emergency surgery at the very moment we were signing the closing papers. The second was receiving a check from the sale that was barely enough for a tank of gas (and I’m not bitter about this at all! two years later…grumblegrumble…). And the third was when the new owners asked us what the big weird-looking plant on the south side of the backyard was.

Dear sweet innocent new owners, that’s Roger the Rhubarb Plant Hell-Bent on World Domination. Roger was a beloved family member, and the topic of many a post here. Also? Rhubarb is apparently my humor muse; I was hells funnier back then. Wow. Anyhoodle, the new owners had never heard of rhubarb, had never seen it, had no idea what to do with it. I’m going to hope they fell into a deep romantic relationship with the vegetable, and not a one-day-stand with a landscaper to have it ripped out. (Dear Colorado friends, just let me believe Roger still lives, it makes me happy).

Since moving here just shy of two years ago we have been rhubarb-less. And it has been full of sads. We long ago scraped clean the last jar of my rhubarb marmalade, licked the last bit of strawberry-rhubarb jam off our fingers even longer ago, and hoarded the chopped rhubarb Tom’s mom gave us until we could no longer stand it and baked it into a crumble. Then we had this horrible supply and demand black-market chore-trading problem…and that was just between me and Tom. The boys were worse. We all shed a little tear when that pan was empty. More sads.

I even looked at the sad stalks of rhubarb at the store a few weeks ago, but decided my marriage was more important. Tom firmly believes that one should never purchase rhubarb, that it’s horrible luck to do so. One must grow one’s own rhubarb, or steal it from the neighbors in the dead of night. So I quietly sniffled and moved on to the bananas.

But! A great day is upon us! Rhubarb has returned to our land! There has been much rejoicing.

Now that is a rhubarb patch. Yes, it is still on the small side, but trust me when I say Roger was smaller when we popped him into the ground, so I have high hopes for this circle of delight. It’s also the first bit of landscaping I’ve done in the backyard. Yes, I said *I*. That plot was my little project yesterday. I dragged the 22 pound stones out there, I ripped out the grass, I dug the out the dirt, I lined it with stones (it isn’t as much of a wonky circle in person, pinky promise), I lined with the aforementioned 22 pound stones, I filled it with clean dirt, and I planted three (yes, three!) rhubarb plants. It’s the best looking thing in the backyard, and I am unreasonably proud of it.

We’re still tossing around names for it; Roger 2.0 is in the lead, though a smartass friend suggested Jen’s Mutant Rhubarb Plant. Whatever we call it, I hope soon we can call it crumble…marmalade…and jam.

It’s National Teachers’ Week here in the States, with Mother’s Day this Sunday. Methinks there should be a homeschooled 12 year old boy catering to my every whim right now, but like many things I find myself a wee bit disappointed in that area. Then I thought, perhaps my whims were unknown! Perhaps I should help out my poor unknowing sons (I’ll include the school-attending son here, as Teachers’ Week is a wash at this point, and there is still hope for The Day of The Mothers), and share my whims! I get a post, they get a clue! So in honor of my twelfth, twelve things I want for Mother’s Day.

1. I want to go a day, a full blessed 24 hours, without hearing the following words: Minecraft, Linux, Ubuntu (really, what the hell?), invention, Raspberry Pi, hack/hacking, code/coding, HTML, Python, Javascript, Java, I’m huuuuuunngry (son #2), I’m not hungry (son #1), not fair!, you idiot!, no, why?, do I hafta?, Club Penguin, Puffle, fart, mung, lolz (said just like it looks), YOLO (please make it stop), it’s not my fault!, but why’s he get to…?, Gangnam Style, Harlem Shake,  and anything that is uttered in a whiny manner.
2. I want Chicago to kindly reverse its current meteorological cranial-rectal inversion. It is May freaking 10th and a whopping 47 degrees, with rain forecast on and off today. I’ve learned in my adult life to never plant anything before Mother’s Day, but for the love of all things holy, I bought hanging plants yesterday at Costco and will have to bring them inside tonight because it’s going to get below 40 degrees. I’m ready to sweat through my underwear. Charming mental image, yes.
3. I want to go six months before I have to see my dentist again. He’s a lovely man, very gentle, but we’ve been seeing entirely too much of each other these last few weeks. My crown is finally on but I still have to go back. The night-guard that was supposed to prevent dental problems like these needs more adjusting, and we’ll probably finally mutually agree to acknowledge the tooth on the other side that likely needs a crown as well. So much for the perfect oral hygiene of which I’ve been so proud these many years. Oh, and my jaw can knock off the pain and spasms too, while we’re at it.
4. I want to experience what I anticipate is the delightful sensation of working through the day and beating a to-do list into submission. I want to be able to shut down my computer and be done with my day earlier than 9:30 at night.  Last night Tom and I watched Skyfall (oh holy hell was it good, and I’m not a fan of Bond movies as a general rule), and I barely knew what to do with myself. I relaxed and then went to bed and actually fell asleep.
5. I want to know what it’s like to wake up in the morning refreshed after a full night’s sleep.
6. I want to complete a thought and a blog post in a reasonable amount of time. See #2…it ain’t May 10th no longer. And I ain’t got no good English neither.
7. I want an entirely clean home for an afternoon. I want to revel in the absence of dust and dog hair, Legos on display and not on the floor, a white porcelain kitchen sink that is so white it could blind you (aside: I will never again have a white porcelain kitchen sink, they never look clean). I want to flit from room to room with a hint of a smile, then cozy up on the couch for a little reading and napping, knowing there is nothing that needs attention.
8. I want my son to eat, gain weight, and grow. I want the pediatrician to take me seriously when I say his lack of growth is a concern. I want to never again see the look in my son’s eyes when a restaurant gives him a kiddie menu, for the under-10 set. I want people to quit thinking the boys are twins. And I want people to quit commenting on it; we’re doing the best we can and we’re tired of feeling like failures.
9. I want to figure out this parenting thing before we send the boys out into the world totally screwed up.
10. I want my van to start like a good little van, and knock off that extended rumble until it catches and is on. I’m sure Tom thinks I’m nuts, but I’ve driven that van nearly every day for the last nine years and the start is longer and sounds different. Van, you gotta get with the program. You may have 129,000 miles on your bones but you gotta make it another 70k or so.
11. I want flowers. Not because it’s a Hallmark holiday or my birthday, but because it’s the Tuesday after a full moon. Or because they looked beautiful. Or because you saw them in someone’s yard, picked them, and ran like hell.
12. I want balance. And peace. And a perfectly made dirty martini with extra large olives.

Hm. I’m not asking for too much this year, am I?

1. Thou shalt use pencil and only pencil. Thou shalt not use colored pencil, erasable pen, or a quill dipped in the tears of a unicorn. Pencil, well-sharpened or mechanical.
2.  Thou shalt scribe legibly, for thou does not know who will need to read thy scribblings.
3. Thou shalt not draw pictures, exchange witty notes with thy stand partner, or share thy snarky opinions of the conductor on thy music.
4. Thou shalt not mark up thy music in such a way that other musicians cannot read the notes.
5. Thou shalt employ the use of an eraser if so warranted.
6. Thou shalt not write Db for C#, or F# for Gb, for they are different notes. They may have the same fingerings and produce the same lovely tones, but they are not the same.
7. Thou shalt indicate an accidental by placing the sign to the left of the note head, and nowhere else.
8. Thou shalt mark where to breathe with a checkmark, and the letters BB to indicate Big Breath. And then breathe there.
9. Thou shalt keep thy markings short, sweet, and understandable.
10. Thou shalt get into the habit of marking up music, for it will make you a better and more consistent musician.

It’s not easy to admit, but I have one helluva mouth. Yes, profanity is the fallback of those with a poor vocabulary, yadayadayada, I get it. I also know that my stress levels aren’t going to drop by me switching over to “gollygoshdarn.” I have a very strong filter, and the boys have learned never to repeat anything they ever hear while I’m driving. Or when I’m practicing my flute, especially lately, as it hurts like a <bad word> to play piccolo with severe TMJ.

My brother, however, has a filter that is not quite as advanced. He’s in the Army Reserves, was active military for awhile, his son is still young enough to not understand or repeat what he hears (yet….mwahahahhahaha), and has never set foot in a classroom as a teacher.  So his mouth out-mouths mine. We’re a real pair when we get together, yes. He’s gotten better around the boys, but…not…quite.

Several weeks ago we were all up at my parents’ weekend home in Wisconsin. It’s been named Wits End, and yes I named it, because I wanted to be able to say “I’m at Wits End” and mean it, and it’s the perfect weekend hideaway for all of us. And my little brother was describing someone and was about to use a particular word that even I won’t use, stopped by my wild eyes and choked “agh!” The boys, of course, were greatly intrigued by this new forbidden word and only through great effort by everyone in the room was the conversation re-directed.

Ten minutes later I get this text from my brother, sitting across the room:

Needless to say, we are all having an enormous amount of fun with this. A and J truly believe meekrob and mung are the dirtiest swears to exist. My brother and I about pee ourselves with the hilarity of it all. The boys use these nonsense words and I get all Mom Faced and chew them out. They think they’re getting away with something and I get a chuckle nearly every day.

Those boys. They really need to watch their meekrob mouths or I’m going to wash their mouths out with mung.

Today is the first day we’ve had the windows open in six months. We’re so confident hopeful that spring may have actually arrived that Tom took the plastic sheeting off the windows. The tulips in our yard are hesitantly poking up, fully expecting to be frozen, the trees are starting to show the very slightest haze of green, and all the dog poopsicles from the winter have been collected and properly disposed of. This is the latest spring I can remember, but my memory is not only crappy these days, but is colored by the fact that fourteen of my last sixteen springs were in an entirely different climate and spring there hit with stops and starts. In fact, my friends in Colorado are currently enduring a winter storm, expecting a full foot of snow, even as they’re still nursing sunburns from Sunday’s gorgeous weather. Cross my heart, I feel bad for them; no one south of Anchorage should see that much snow on May first.

So with the warm breezes that caress my skin rather than smack it, I suddenly have a bit more energy. Sadly, it’s tempered by the muscle-relaxant-hangover I have this morning. My TMJ has flared so badly that muscle relaxants are pretty much the only way to calm it while I sleep. During the day I can focus on my jaw and relax, but when I’m dead to the world I’m still clenching and grinding and injuring my teeth, even with a night guard (my second, for those who are keeping track; I chewed through the first one a couple years ago). So far I’ve damaged one filling (left side…fixed), have begun the drilling joy of a crown (right side…half fixed), and suspect there is another cracked tooth (left side…currently being ignored by mutual agreement with my dentist). Needless to say, my teeth hurt, and as chewing should probably not be done by the still-functional front teeth I will be beginning a liquid diet immediately. No, not wine, though that is a delightful idea; I’m still taking the muscle relaxants and I really like living, despite not being a total fan of my life right now.

Yesterday I completed the training to be a SENG parent group facilitator. It was a fantastic couple of days and I’m still digesting all that I learned. There is a huge screaming need for groups like these for parents, and I’m excited to get some groups going, hopefully this summer.

I read a fascinating article yesterday on the freedom to quit. I don’t necessarily agree with everything in the article, but it’s been a good thing for my mind to chew on. There’s a freedom in being able to quit something…and I’m scanning my list of projects wondering which one(s) I can quit, which ones are no longer serving me or my goals.

In case you’re not in the middle of a job search, here’s a newsflash: it’s ugly out there. Found out last week that I’m not qualified for a clerk position at a community college. Couldn’t even get an interview. So. Yeah.

Something positive happened with our house! The surprise! The joy! Several weeks ago the drains in our furnace room made known their deep displeasure with the world, and a plumber came to visit. An hour of sewer pipe rodding and inside pipe snaking, and everything was hunky-dory. And then, lo, the skies opened and there was much flooding in the area. Ye Olde Sump Pump rose to the challenge, and the sewer pipes did their job, and there was no flooding in The House of Chaos while husband was out of town. The sump pump earned itself a pony. And a battery backup; damned if I’m going to tempt fate with areal flooding and a power outage.

The dog. She smells.

Coffee.

Dear service provider: if you say you’re going to send an estimate within a certain timeframe, receive an email query about the aforementioned estimate and promise delivery by the next day, and a week later still don’t have it to the homeowner, kindly do not be surprised or offended by a less than stellar review on Angie’s List. Yes, it’s spring and the busy season and I don’t care. Love and kisses, the woman who wants the brambles the hell out of her backyard.

Boring post? Yep. But such is my brain today. Many apologies.

Amidst the hubbub and generalized chaos of the last week, I celebrated a dozen years of wondering why I thought I’d be a great parent A turned 12. He is a full-on tween and cannot wait for the official teen years so he can hop onto social media. God help me. I’m starting to see just the very beginnings of teenager attitude and angst…or it’s just the continuing attitude and angst he’s displayed since he was two. I think we win here for the longest case of the Terrible Twos; a decade has to be some kind of record. Asynchrony really does a number on a person, and dear God what will puberty on top of that be like? I think I need a panic room.

And then, just when I’m positive I’m going to sell my child to the next idiot who ignores my clever NO Solicitors sign and rings the bell anyway, he does something so mature, so jaw-droppingly awesome that I just stood and gaped at him. The sun burst through the storm clouds and shone upon the future and it was good.

Chicago is a little moist today. We’ve had a lot of rain in recent weeks, and yesterday it got worse. It poured yesterday. Non-stop buckets of rain. I’d feel worse for my poor dog, if she hadn’t made the house smell like wet pooch. And then it poured overnight. I have a newfound appreciation of our sump pump; it kicked on roughly every ninety seconds last night. I’d love it even more if it didn’t live directly below my bedroom and sound like a earth-mover in need of a tune-up. I had a less-than-pleasant night of slumber, but my basement is dry so no complaining here. However, between the Wrath Of God rain and the heroics of the sump pump, Lake Chaos was born:

And you can’t even see how far to the right it extends, courtesy of our large MaplElm tree (it’s a maple tree, growing an elm sapling in a crook way up high). An hour after I took this it was Lake Chaos extended its banks even further and I began to price out wood for the ark A and I will build as a homeschool project. Hands on learning FTW!

A finally hauled himself out of bed and earned his keep for the day…nay…week. My out of the box thinker with a sharp wit and even sharper eyes noted that the sump pump hose (yes, that gawdawful black hose in the middle of the yard) was under water. And if it was under water, it was probably working twice as hard, as it was pumping out the hose as well as the water around the foundation. <insert stunned face here, as well as a solid ::facepalm::>

I was about to go out in the torrential downpour (I really can’t stress enough just how much it has rained), when he piped up.

“Mom, I’ll put on my boots and go out and move it.”

I have a new hero today.

Those were indeed angels you heard singing this morning.

Earlier today I was mentally working on a post about how to really suck at parenting, because I think I qualify for expert status. This morning A had a couple baby teeth extracted; they weren’t moving and the adult teeth moving in were not only giving him this funky vampire vibe, but were threatening to bring orthodontia to our home sooner rather than later. I’d warned him, I’d warned the entire dental staff, I’d tried to mentally prepare myself. His sensory issues are generally in check, until anxiety bursts in and takes over. Needless to say we had two hours of hysterics before we even got to the dentist, and by 11:30 I was fried and ready for a stiff drink and bed.

And then, while I was driving home from my ENT appointment where I learned my ears are fine but my TMJ is out of control, my phone chimed with the news from Boston. Two explosions at the end of the Boston Marathon. Suddenly a hysterical child at the dentist, or my aching jaw, seemed so small, so insignificant.

This is a bad week of bad anniversaries. Waco, Oklahoma City, Columbine. And now Boston. This is the first major event on US soil since 9/11 nearly a dozen years ago. It’s the first time I have kids old enough to learn about it firsthand, to understand it. One of those kids, as mentioned above, has sensory issues and anxiety flares. The boys vaguely know something happened today, and I’ve simply said there was an explosion in Boston this afternoon. I’m sure they’ll pick up more as the days and weeks go on, and I’m hoping it stays in the background of their lives for as long as possible.

There will be other epic parenting failures to share, of this I am certain. But tonight is for love and peace and giving thanks for what is going right in our lives. Sometimes we just need perspective forced upon us.

Peace and love to the city of Boston and everyone involved.

You’d think with the radio silence around here lately that I would have been reading up a storm. Not so much. The stack of library books here mocking me is certainly testament to that. Oh, how I miss the days of my youth, when I would sit and read for hours on end. Le sigh. Nevertheless, I managed to get one book read in the last several weeks, and it was a good one.

The newest title by Gifted Homeschoolers Forum Press (the awesome publisher that put out If This is a Gift) is Learning in the 21st Century: How to Connect, Collaborate, and Create. This is a quick and easy read; I whipped through it while overseeing classes at our homeschool co-op. It’s three main sections are on connecting with others (using Google Reader may it rest in peace, Twitter, blogging, that sort of thing), collaborating with others (using Google Drive may it never disappear or our homeschooling is screwed, wikis, that sort of thing), and creating (Prezi, Xtranormal which we love and I really need to use more, podcasting, digital portfolios).

I have to be honest and confess that this book is most likely for homeschoolers who are unfamiliar with online options. I breezed through the “Connect” section so quickly because I knew and used most of it. Someone entirely new to the cool stuff available online would find it helpful and useful. I read the “Collaborate” section a little more slowly so as to become more familiar with the programs there. We use Google Drive a lot, but I’m not as familiar with Edmodo and I’ve never made a wiki in my life (though that is about to change; I see amazing possibilities there). The “Create” section is where I slowed down to a more reasonable reading pace (still danged fast, according to some), because boy howdy, there are some gems in here.

Part one of “Create” is creation tools. Frankly, I need to learn these just to keep ahead of A. I’m sick of him showing me up, tech-wise, followed by the troll face and the troll song (click through at your peril; this is my life). I’ve used Xtranormal and have seen Prezi in action; there’s great stuff out there. Part two of this section is ready-made projects. Ohhh,the possibilities here! A is a multi-media child, and output is an issue. Writing, while better, is still a monumental challenge (I try not to panic about this). Testing…sigh…not pretty. The opportunity to present a topic in an alternate manner, one that he is comfortable with, is an educational necessity. This is the kind of scaffolding the schools were unable to provide; I’m still insisting he learn to write and keep his wits about him during tests, but I refuse to have those be the only way he demonstrates knowledge. Projects and digital portfolios are the best method for him at this time. This section gave me so many ideas and I can’t wait to start implementing them.

I don’t think I was necessarily the target audience for this book, but I did get some good information from it and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. I do hope it is somehow updated as new programs are released and older ones either fade away or are updated with awesome new features. I certainly recommend following the authors on Twitter, Facebook, or on their blog Engaging Educators.

Boy, I wish I had a great story for the radio silence of the last several weeks. Something cool like Tiffani picking up her family and taking off on a one-way ticket to South America. Alas, nothing fun or exciting, just…things.

I found a grey hair and hilarity did not ensue. There was a mild bit of irritated panic, as I just don’t have the intestinal fortitude to manage both greying hair and the skin of a 13 year old the night before school pictures. I’m now trying to work a line item into our budget that covers hair coloring.

I bought lavender nail polish yesterday. Hopefully this will go over better than the yellow polish incident of 1997, when I was mocked by both students and teachers alike my first year teaching. That color lived on for several years to mark flute head joints, never to be seen on my hands again. Now I need to find the time to sit still and let the polish dry. Quit laughing. It might happen. Eventually.

This past week I was notified that I will be co-presenting (with the awesome Mika Gustavson) at the National Association for Gifted Children convention in November. We’re doing a roundtable on homeschooling gifted kids. And yes, I’m aware of the irony.

While I know that April Showers bring May Flowers, there is no mention in that little ditty about the incessant damp being accompanied by cold. I am tired of the cold, and the grey (in the skies and on my head), and long sleeves. I’m ready to blind the world with the whitey whiteness that is my “wintered in Chicago” skin. Ready your blinders, I want to wear shorts.

Right now the house looks like the “before” picture for spring cleaning. As soon as it warms and dries the hell up that will change. No point in scrubbing floors that will just be mud-tracked within the hour.

If you haven’t played with Bitstrips on Facebook, you are missing out on some great time-suck fun.

It’s no secret that I struggle with stress management. In fact, I’m pretty certain that a new acquaintance could pick that up within about 90 seconds of meeting me for the first time. It’s been suggested that I meditate (I’ve tried; hard to do when you can still hear the chaos outside the locked door), exercise (sadly, that’s dropped to the bottom of the budget; yes, I could do it at home, but have you ever tried to exercise with a dog literally in your face and the kids climbing around you?), do yoga (see comment on exercise), practice self-care (what defines self-care, really? Sometimes a pee all by my lonesome is all I can manage), and get rip-roaring drunk and practice my flute (this I’ve done, and it’s fun). The last few years have been brutal. I thought for the last couple of months that we were through the worst of it, and for the most part we are. But big uglies keep cropping up, accompanied by the little uglies. It’s like walking through a big field; one or two burrs catching on to your clothes is manageable. Being covered in burrs of all sizes and shapes is painful, difficult to manage, and you don’t really know where to begin. The last few years have covered us in burrs of all shapes and sizes. I had managed to pull many of them off, but as they keep piling on despair piles on alongside. The most recent burr is directly related to allll the others from the last few years. My stress management…or lack thereof…has finally caught up to me in a physical way. I’ve always had TMJ-like symptoms, exacerbated by flute playing, and I’ve always managed to keep them under control. Not anymore. My difficulty in managing my reactions to life has resulted in the TMJ taking off like a drunk toddler hell-bent on destruction. My ears are involved now, my jaw itself aches, and my teeth are unhappy. I had no idea how unhappy my teeth were until yesterday when my dentist informed me that I had a chipped tooth on one side (going back in this morning for a filling…yay me) and a cracked tooth requiring a crown on the other. Evidently I have perfect oral hygiene and over-achieving jaws; I’ve been clenching my teeth at night for so long, even with a bite guard, that I’ve cracked teeth. At least now I know my superpower. It’s ChompMom! Here to save you from the zombies! Run, save yourselves! She’ll chew down the forest with one chomp and create a barrier!

In the span of under 24 hours, the universe screamed at me to change. Through a favorite podcast that I listened to twice in a row, flipping through a magazine I’d never heard of while waiting for a massage, and a friend’s Facebook status, I’ve been directed to check out Byron Katie’s The Work. I’ve only scanned the website and gotten the basic gist of it, but I think this might help me gag the lying voices in my head that are contributing to my stress. I can’t live like this anymore. I hurt all the time, my poor husband has to deal with me (though I did offer to just leave so the other three wouldn’t have to deal with my crazy), and I see myself becoming the angry and bitter old woman I always swore I’d never be.

(Psst…this is why I haven’t been writing…don’t see the need to share my angry and bitter craziness in print)

I’m updating and redesigning this site with Kristi from Creative Kristi Designs. I’m sure she’s wondering what cliff I’ve fallen off of (ooh, bad grammar, bad, bad!), and I should probably wrap up some decisions and send them her way. I’m excited about the change. With the new design and renewed focus will be a new direction for me; I’ve been doing too much self-censoring as I write here. I know there are a lot of people who read here and most of them do not comment. Many of them know me in real life. And I’ve held back a lot because of that. So I’m going to loosen that restriction on myself and make others’ reactions not my problem. Big step for me.

If you’ve made it this far in the whine-fest that is this post, you get a lollipop and a puppy. I shall return shortly with a more engaging, entertaining, and pleasant post. Sometimes you just need to brain-dump the burrs to get to the good stuff.