What's Left

I'm due to loosen the brain (what's left of it) and flex my fingers a bit. I'm breaking from the 'book' because God knows I really need a reality check. Okay, too many directions to go in here. Ever feel like your brain is full? It's a computer and, like a computer, I'm all out of memory. I don't know if I need more hard drive space, RAM, or a faster processor, but I am full up and slowing down mentally. So what if I don't know who 'famous' people are? So what if I barely catch the news and never know what people are talking about? So what if someone I know is pregnant and I just found out... and she's nine months along. I hear some people would care about these things. I'm apparently too wrapped up in my own issues to notice or care.

Okay, just stared blankly for a minute and lost myself. See?! I don't even pay attention to myself! Talk about scatter-brained! Is anyone paying attention to how daft I am lately? I'm not talking about trying to put the silverwear away in the fridge, or walking to the kitchen and forgetting why I'm there. I mean solid brain gaps, or would that be concrete brain blocks? I don't know. Part of me does care... the small part that doesn't actually dominate the part of me that tries to do things about things. Part of me wants to whack myself upside the head and say, "Hey! Get your damned act together! There's nothing wrong with you and you know it!" Other parts say, "Who cares? Disappear into some unreality and forget about it." Have I become so complacent with trying to 'not-sweat-the-little-things' that I don't care about anything anymore? I must say my stress levels are way down, but the give-a-shit factor may have been affected as well.

Alright, let's just assume for a minute that I'm just venting at my own lack of awareness of the world around me, as in news, media, friends, family, everything. It's frustrating being the person who's clueless to everything. Those who know me know I like to be the one with something clever to say, something funny or encouraging or significant somehow. Castle. Yeah, insider. But seriously, this decline of mind has been happening long before the first mini-me started succubi-ing my insides. (There's a visual for you!) I remember looking with interest and understanding at my brother's college Calculus homework while I was a junior in high school. I remember figuring a few algorithms in my head for fictional science just for fun. I remember studying the 8 human senses out of curiosity of my own anosmia. Now I'm lucky if I complete a sentence coherently. Subject, check. Predicate, check. Forget balancing my checkbook. Zero, done. (j/k, sort of.) I just want to manage cooking more than cereal for my kids' breakfast and taking them to run a few errands without getting lost or spending too much time staring at the prices and wondering if it's worth it.

On the note of running errands, I will no longer be taking my children, or myself, to places which I do not know the way... by heart. I can't navigate like I used to either. Sucks having no friends close, let alone no friends with kids close, and really no way of getting them involved in a play group. I've become the person I can't stand: that mom who's basically incapable of life. My husband does everything, cooks, cleans, shops, fixes... I can match clothes and do laundry; that's about it lately. This has done two things for me in life: I have more time with nothing I can do (reasonably or efficiently), and I have less time to figure out how to get my act together. Pull yourself together, kid! Seriously, I can't get out of my own way! (For those even reading this and wondering: Yes, I've tried the MD route and she put me on anti-convulsents...yeah not so much, thanks.)

Okay so I'm winding down on the vent and feeling like, I dunno, I at the very least accomplished putting words together in sentence format. Yay, go me. Blog, check. So you're thinking either, "Oh, Caroline, pull yourself together and stop exaggerating!" or "Haha, very cute." or "OMG, this girl needs help! When did this all start?" Maybe something in between? Whatever. Talk to me sometime about it but I'll most likely have forgotten all about posting this. Should someone be concerned? So far, I got nothing.

Of Mice and Men

There's a mouse in our house... hopefully just one but who knows? We keep finding chewed up utensils in one of the drawers and haven't had time to buy and set any traps. Maybe tomorrow. Oh tomorrow... how I long for thee... (insert music: Somedaaayyyyy....)

Ahem, yes well... As I sit here trying to rid my mind of some children's song and not think about the mess of books and toys left out in the living room, I have to mention the success of this weekend. My brother and I pulled off quite the trick getting a surprise party together for my dad's 70th and getting him up here from Texas without either parent knowing. *Mischief Managed!* We were very happy about that. It was a very busy Saturday in fact. I broke my baby toe (likely but not confirmed beyond a black joint), kicked the rents out of the house with the kids, finished a huge Italian dinner my mama started, decorated, welcomed guests, helped break-up/avoid WWIII when it came to parking and certain egos vs neighbors, surprised the crappola out of the rents, balanced socializing with running the party, and got the kids home for bed... and I did it all with the help of my BFF! He really is the best husband in the world.

Okay, cheesy moment warning: It doesn't take a compassionate woman to recognize the hard work of a loving man. I'm proof since I'm about as cold-hearted and discompassionate as one can get at times. When I'm emotional at all it's irrational. Girly? Not me baby! Cards, anniversary dates and birthdays, special momentos and tender details... Blah! I'm just not good at that stuff and it's so not on my priority list. I listened to some co-workers bitching about their husbands the other day and thought, Wow, Jess isn't like that at all, and if he did any of those things he'd have good reason and I wouldn't rag on him for it. Another girl was bitching because the flowers she got were all wrong and stupid and blahblahblah... Really? Aren't you dumped yet? If you can't appreciate the effort someone extends to you then get out of that relationship! I got a FB message on my wall along the lines of, "blah blah, mushy stuff, I luv you." Now that's the best V-Day message for me.

While we're on the subject, I'll throw the big vent out there. People spend recockulous amounts of their paychecks on flowers, cards, candy, and whatever else and all to say "I love you." But what's the real message? Are we only in love once a year, spending the rest in a rat race of work, bills, home repair or what-have-you? I'm not saying this gesture of over-spending on Hallmark-worded love notes should extend throughout the year, yet for many it does. I'm saying let's not belittle the love we have for each other by exonerating the American holiday because someone in media says so. Let's exonerate love as it was meant to be. My husband runs our little maze day in and day out, night in and night out, running himself dry for the sake of our family's well-being. We see each other about once a week, which is way more than families in the military with loved ones deployed overseas. We hardly communicate and when we do it's (unfortunately) misinterpreted or lost. We're broke, broken, tired, tried, run down, run over, but we've got something no amount of money or rest or anything else could ever offer. We've got devotion to each other, love for the person each of us is inside. Jesse is my best friend because, well, who else would put up with me, but really because he knows me and doesn't have to impress me or shower me with stereotyped gifts I'll never want or use. We're not cover models carrying around brand-name garbage at over-priced mark-ups for the sake of looking good. We look horrible for the sake of getting done what needs getting done in life. Each day I choose to love him and each day I'm never, ever disappointed.

Hey Hallmark, put that in your hat and chew hard. :p

Getting Started, at the least

Getting started is always the hardest. That goes for blogs, chapters, emails, any posts, any jobs, and projects, anything. I started cutting hearts with my daughter the other day to make valentines for today. She succeeded in putting together an amazing birthday card for my dad, Papa. As a matter of fact, I'm receiving some of her 'artwork' now (torn pink, colored-on paper). She's slung two pink bags over her shoulder and is going on some imaginary trip. Oh to be young again when acted-out imaginations were part of everyday living! See that, I've completely digressed.

Okay, my 'tickets' have been recollected... now for my thoughts. I spent some time at mama's yesterday for lunch and to clean-up downstairs before Saturday's party. Vacuumed my butt off and rearranged some furniture to make a nice area for hanging out and playing Play Station or Wii. I even found a lost puzzle piece and glued it place since the completed, back-boarded puzzles were out and accessible. It was one of those 'someday' things that happened to happen... Totally rare! Feeling perhaps just as accomplished for that little feat as I did for the back-breaking stuff, I went upstairs and did a little housework for mama too. Sometimes Jess and I have so little time and too many wrenches in life to make things we plan actually happen. We still have a basement full of 'stuff' which hasn't been unpacked. I'm thinking we'd better do this before the big meltdown... just in case. Haven't had a rainy season in the Shack yet so...

In other news I've been working to a close in yet another 'chapter' which will please one friend out there. It's not remotely what I like, expected, wanted, or what fits best in the grand scheme of things. I have learned a few things from the characters and found multiple continuity errors in the verse... again. *SIGH* Yup, one step forward, eight steps back. Or is that 50-something pages more, 100-something pages to reread? AHCK! Whatev, right? Not like I have a deadline; it's just a sanity thing, something the BFF will never understand. If only I had more than an hour or two every other night, or someone to actually bounce ideas off of, or some semblance of sense... yeah, whatev.

That's been my best accomplishment by far lately: letting go, dealing, moving on. As I type, I've just had one of those moments. Bekah almost lost the whole post thus far by banging a pen against the keyboard, not that she should've had a pen... which is all over VJ's face now... *sigh* yup. Whatev. We have bigger problems, like getting charged on our checking account a large amount which was to have been canceled, but wasn't. Our oil bill from last month is still hanging on the dry-erase board in the kitchen, unpaid. The in-box on  my desk is quite full. The what-do-you-want-to-do-with-these pile on Jesse's bureau is thick, but when does he have time to look at it? Oh and more Shack fun: we have mice! What fun! Jess found a chewed up spatula in the drawer. Add it to the list.

Hey, we're healthy, aside the lingering colds, eczema, sores, etc. We're in a home. We're blessed with wonderful children, ahem... "VJ, What!?!" Hmm, too quiet in the bedroom... We've got four grandparents for the lit'uns, which neither of us had. We have full time, dependable jobs. We have the Lord, which is more than enough. We are rich; I know that, and that's a start.