the first cold of the year and already i have cabin fever...

there are 47 birds in this photo...

 Unlike most people who catch colds, I am knocked of my feet and walloped in a BIG way. While most people tend to pretend they are not sick, I need to take to my bed for as much sleep as I can cram, stuff myself silly with vitamin C, and drink hot stuff till I'm tired of peeing all the time. And if yer one of those who carries on at work like you're not actually sick? It's. All. Your. Fault! It is! Stay home, take a sick day, watch hours and hours of Doctor Who, drink the sweetest hottest tea you can stand...just stay home! I caught mine from the mister who carried it home from his work as it has been a very busy work week at his place and everyone has been coming in sick. Blech. Thank goodness I got my flu shot and managed (knock wood) to so far evade the holiday ick that hit everyone at my school.

So here  I am, buried under blankets listening to the birdies (and the neighbor's dog) enjoying the breeze that sneaks in through the window. I have laptop in lap and am positively bored. I don't feel like looking at pinterest, I canceled Netlfix in December, and am on a Facebook hiatus that should be a drop but darn if Candy Crush doesn't keep me there (not that anyone noticed save for you). I'm having an existential crisis in regards to the living me and the online me. If I fade away from Facebook will anybody notice and if nobody notices do I cease to exist at all? I've been feeling this way ever since we returned from our BIG road trip. Most will probably roll their eyes but I am a person who needs friendships validated via letters, email, and phonecalls. Liking a post on Facebook doesn't cut it. I am bummed by the large number of emails, fb messages and voicemails I have left for old friends that have gone unanswered. I've been tending a garden full of drought tolerant plants methinks. Sometimes I think I should drop it all..this blog, flickr, facebook, etc. but then the sad raccoon creeps out and vanity hits and I tether myself again to this thing called social media but fnd myself more often than not depressed by it all. I used to be gung-ho for it. I used to think the internet could cultivate real solid relationships. And it did, it did not long ago but now we are all so used to instant gratification that unless you are a constant you are out of the game. I am aware that we all have our own lives to live and families to raise and be with but if you have time to instagram something you have time to tell an old friend you re thinking of them, do you not?

Eegads...I just had an unsettling thought all wrapped up in ego. Everyday I have moments where I am reminded of people who have wandered through my life. When those moments happen and they are people I can contact, I do (everyday in fact with no reply) if they are not in my life, I try to find them even though I have tried before. I think how lucky I am to have these memories and to have these people in my life and to be honest I want people to think the same of me. Selfish isn't it? Vain? Now I feel like an ass.

Let's chalk it up to cold meds had I been taking any...I just want to say I appreciate you and you and you and here's to 2014, making new friends and saying goodbye to the old.

(This post was not planned in the least. I was going to write about my adventure in attempting a capsule wardrobe but that will have to come later....especially since I have missed two days now to being sick...but I do have three for ya...)

rolling with it

 mister is asleep on the sofa next to me as i tippy-type various angst-filled posts that may or may not sometime be published. his breathing is slow and deep as his crossed arms over his chest twitch every now and then. i feel ever-so-slighlty train wreckish and i think it's just a cycle i go through. call it depression or moodiness or simply the holidays, it is what it is and it hits like clockwork.

it's not surprising really. at least to me. my mother went into the hospital around this time just before she died. i had no idea she wouldn't be coming home. none. i think about her last Thanksgiving in a lonely room so far from her home and her comforting objects and my chest tightens. heartsick. i still feel so young. i feel like i shouldn't have to feel this way. that i am too young to not have her alive. we were close. crazy close. and i miss her. there are times when i miss her so much tears simply fall and other times i am so angry at her for things that cannot be changed. then there are times when i am so very mournful of what she went through, opportunities she lost, and the burden of her illness that my mind goes blank and i refuse, refuse to think anymore on it otherwise i might wail and wailing takes me to a place that i fear so very much.

so yes, it's the season. the season of sad. it can be bittersweet. it usually is. i gather up all my good memories of my mother and my family and the holidays and i fling them about in hopes that i can feel the warmth and charm of my mother. sometimes i succeed, mostly i do not because when i open myself up to it all, it lets all sorts of other into the mix. nothing like the holidays to remind you that you are the last of your traditions. i hold onto them so so so tightly. i wonder why when i know there is no point, no one, no child or children to pass them along to. ick, that sounds so desperate. but here's the thing, my best memories circle around those traditions my mother gave to me. those traditions that she shared even though her heart was broken. her person was broken. i need to share them but am unable to. at least in the manner i wish.

yet, through all this muck. this sad. this ick. i feel grateful and thankful for what i do have and how i came out of it all for the most part, intact (sad raccoon be damned). yes, there is melodrama and whininess and sad rants and such. i make no excuses for that. anyone who never feels these things is taking too many pills. i'm putting this out there because it is what it is. i feel sad. i feel blue. at some point tonight, i am sure i will laugh at something. i will feel inspired and i will write down an idea. i will smile to myself and i will remember my mother without tears. i will smooth back the hair that flops over the mister's forehead and feel my heart burst with all sorts of good feelings and i will slip into a pretty bed with velvety-soft vintage sheets, hippo under my arm, this song stuck in my head as i slip into slumber full of wonder and joy for all that i have.

sad raccoon-o-meter

Nothing can make you hit sad racoon status quicker than a quintet of four year-olds chanting "You're FAT! You're Fat! You're FAT!" with fingers a-pointing and mouths full of laughter. I know they are only four, but man, my heart is full of hurt. Maybe if I am lucky, a house will fall on me. I have the stripey socks for it...and sadly, the warm, purring kitty chirping on my lap is not helping all that much. A little, maybe but not that much. Here's to vacating that raccoon...soon!

building shelves & shooing (sad) raccoons

we are still up to our eyebrows in book boxes and miscellaneous kitsch. in fact, a good number of those boxes are labeled in a kitschy-stchicky way. labels such as kitsch to end all kitsch, return of the kitsch & more kitsch than you can shale a kitschy-stick at. but before all those boxes can be emptied we need to get some shelves in order. there are plans for a shelf to fit behind the sofa and a wall unit in the living room for all my childrens' books. there are also plans for a table/desk dealio that the mister is workin on. it will attach to the wall in the living room and swivel one way for a desk and another way for a craft space. i am so excited to see it. there is a large swath of wood hanging out in the mama a-go-go's garage and every day after work, the mister bikes on over to cut and saw and saw and cut. I kinda just sit, twiddle the thumbs, plan dinner and panic about fitting in at my new job. it's a good, fun job but man, there is MUCH to remember and i hope i don't fail too much.

with all this change and waiting, there is a tiny smidge of a sad raccoon that has gotten its toe in the door. i'm trying to shoo it away as best i can but i made the MAJOR mistake of attempting clothes shopping. when there is a sad raccoon lurking about, never, EVER go clothes shopping or look in the mirror. mirror looking is simply an invitation for that sad raccoon to move on in and outstay its welcome from the get-go. you know me and change, i'm not really a fan, so here's to settling in and getting shelves up and maybe if i put that raccoon to work it will leave in a jiffy. the jiffiest of jiffies. here's hoping.

lovely lovely lovely

please accept my humble thank yous for your lovely words of encouragement and support. i still feel sad and lame and quite over-the-top ridiculous. i want to thank each one of you separately and i will if i can figure out yer emails. i do have to say that Michael, you made me spit my tea out and yer right, learning how to pee standing up is quite an accomplishment.

pleasant dreams to everyone. today i managed a smile here and there. there were kittens at the hardware store (adoption day) and man oh man, there was a four month old grey named kevin i soooooo wanted to take home. i played with color,  took pictures of the garden (there are flowers everywhere!) and hung out with the nephew, encouraging him to fly with an umbrella (whilst jumping off great piles of dirt & mulch). he and the mister also made aliens out of popsicle sticks and masking tape. well, they didn't just do it, i kinda made them. and now, as i tippy type this up, i am on a chat date with this lovely gal...i may hate the phone but IM is pretty nifty. if we're FB friends, gimme a shout and if we're not, why not?

so, i'm still here, red faced and puffy eyed. my head still hurts and my heart still aches and i still feel scared to pieces but i suppose it will pass. i really, really hope it will pass.

it's party time {or} the return of the sad racoon

well...not THAT kind of party. yeah, yeah, i know, i seem to be in a mood more often than not but i'd like to think it is justified. maybe my body is confused because of the insanely gorgeous weather we're having or maybe my brain isn't producing enough serotonin or melatonin or whatever tonin it is supposed to be baking up. either way i feel like running away and a great big rabbit hole would be just dandy.

(warning, sad rant ahead, read at your own risk)

i'm sorry i haven't been posting much but i don't really feel like sunshine and rainbows and happy colors and flowers. my head has been pounding for a few days now and i am tired and crankier than usual. i'm trying to not have ANY sugar right now and maybe all this is a symptom of detox i don't know. i just feel like a square peg trying to fit into that round hole and it's just never gonna happen. i'm never going to be something i'm not. and when i feel all square peggish and unhappy i dwell on those things i cannot change. i'm never going to be a slender, pretty craft writer. i'm never going to be a mom. i'm never going to be a person who can talk to their mother or father. one is dead and the other may as well be for all they care. how's that for uncomfortable baggage?

in less than thirty days i am going to be forty. FORTY! i have no job, no leads, no space to call my own and am one unhappy camper. forty for freaks sake and i have nothing to show for it. there may be stories to share and many of them may be quite amusing but that's it. what makes this all worse is that i feel ungrateful. i feel splotchy and mean and whiny and lamer than lame. i feel like i take up too much space and am in everyone's way. no good. no good. i feel like i have no right to throw a pity party but my head hurts so badly that my toddler self has thrown the body on the floor all red-faced and top-of-the-lungs-screamy.


and now i feel smaller than small. this may very well be my true self. not much to like, right? if there is one thing i am really, really good at it is beating myself up. right now i see no reason not to, it is what it is and i'm letting it out and i am feeling all sorts of wonky. and truthfully i am scared you will think poorly of me or that you might think i need meds or therapy and who knows, maybe i do. what i need more though, is a job, or something to help me feel like there is any point to my sitting here feeling all blue. so yep folks, the raccoon is back. this time she has punked up my skin which is drier than dry and my hair? i don't know what is going on, it has grown coarse and dry and straighter than usual. and the circles under my eyes are the prettiest shade of plum i have seen except for that fact that is is on my face. sigh. i do bid you well, and think i shall retire with a cool glass of water and the comfort of a very dark room. 

**and before you panic, the pic was taken two days ago when the mister and i rode out to the port of san luis. it was a perfect day for a bike ride and a lovely ride at that. my brains was a little off but not too much so. this is a mood, a funk, a gloom, a phase. it will pass. it will.