this and that - here and there

Finally an evening where I can sort of catch my breath.

I've said it several times in the last 6 weeks, but I have no idea how people with multiple children do it.  I have ONE kid.  Granted - he's spoiled.  We let him do multiple activities and one of us is always with him at said activities.  BUT - it's exhausting.  Hubby has a bunch of his own activities - not the least of which is his endless working out, plus poker and Risk (don't ask), etc. etc.

I'm tired.  I have not been feeling that great over the last couple of weeks - I'm currently hoarse as heck, have a nasty hacking dry cough, and a TMJ flare which I think may land me in my doctor's office soon.  Add in the endless running and PHEW.  Not that I'm complaining - I'm not.  As I actually reminded myself - out loud - as I plunked myself into my car on my way home from work today, I'm lucky.  I'm blessed.  I have a good job and a healthy family.

So why am I - in addition to being exhausted - feeling like something is missing?  I hate this.  I have felt this way on and off for a long time, but lately it's been pretty bad.  It's making me insane.

My husband thinks I am so pessimistic I can't see what I have.  And maybe he's right.

But maybe he isn't.  There's something inside of me that's restless and wondering what I'm missing.  I have yet to be able to put my finger on it;.  Maybe this is what a midlife crisis is?

In the meantime, this feeling lingers here and there.  How I have time to even notice it most of the time is beyond me. 

I think I'll bring this into my diary at this point, just because I feel like this blog entry sucks and is disjointed.

On a happier note, we recently had my sister's bridal shower.  One of the things we did for her was make her a friendship wreath.  My mom found the idea in a Victorian crafts book.  I love the idea - I want to make a ribbon wreath like this for myself...eventually...

soccer brings knitting

As the coach's wife, I have the pleasure of generally getting to G's soccer games pretty early.  And I admit, I am one of those moms who gets very nervous before the game, and then very INTO it once the game starts - like I can't sit still and I'm often hoarse by the end.

Now that soccer season is upon us and G is doing travel soccer, I have lots of nervous energy to burn off before the games.  So I knit.  It's worked out well so far.  Here are 2 of my projects I've completed in the last couple of weeks.

Burlington hat:  I love this pattern!  It was in a knitting magazine - not too hard and lots of fun.  I'm starting another one of these tonight.

This is another hat - this is just a pattern I made up - it's K6P2, so it's a nice chunky rib.

wine

Not a banner day.
Too many meetings.  A little confusion.  A lot of chaos.

I tried to channel it in that latest shitastic poem!  If only poems were math - I would kick ass.

Time for a glass of wine and to breathe.  Albeit temporarily.

turned inside out

I think back and can feel
The warm summer sun
A sense of euphoria, of hope,
of endless possibilities.

I wanted to grow up.
Simple enough.
I had a plan. 
I had many plans.
I was ready - ready to be me
I was going to love and learn
And succeed.

Along that path I went
Little by little the realization
That my life was not all under
My control
Hit me.

At first it was just a little poke
Some unfair situation
A circumstance I couldn't completely control
A disappointment that slowed me down.

But on I marched.
I was ready.
Success was only a few feet away
Hard work, dedication
It was right there
And alongside of it sat love
True love
Absolute love
Easy, simple, happiness

Wrong.
The house of cards I neatly stacked
It wasn't that a breeze rustled it
A hurricane came
And down it went

In the shambles of those cards
Was my well-planned for life
Nothing had ended
It just had been turned
Completely upside down.

I tried to rebuild it
Using the original pieces
After all, this was my life
The plans I laid
The foundation I built.

The glue, the braces, the ties
Some held for a while
Some crumbled from underneath
And down it came again.

All the while
As my rebuilding faltered
Life went on
Not nearly as planned as I hoped

In the shambles and ruins
There was sunshine and rain
Moments of sorrow and great joy
I missed some
Too busy trying to reconstruct
That which was not meant to be repaired.

The road of life stretched farther behind me
In the glimmer, a bit of happiness was there
I grabbed it
I needed it
I wanted it
I thought maybe I deserved it.

Life does not reconstruct itself
And that bit of happiness
It came with a consequence or three
And the sorrow and confusion
The attempts to rebuild and reconstruct
They worked here and there
But that old life, that hope and promise
It would never be the same.

Now I'm turned
inside out
Where do I go from here?
Do I keep rebuilding
And build the best I can?
Do I start over?
Do I split the difference?

Can I have what I need and what I want
And what I've worked so hard to get?

the ever-ellusive RSVP

My sister's wedding shower is next Saturday.

I sent out invites over a month in advance.

The RSVP date is absolutely no later than this Saturday.

And yet...of the 72 invites...21 RSVPs.

REALLY?

I realize people procrastinate.  I know I do.  But honestly.  I fully expect to never hear from at least 30 people.  Granted, there are a lot of out-of-state invitees, but you never can say for sure that just because someone lives XX miles away from the event location, they definitely won't come (or will come).  But come on people - let's get our shit together and RSVP.  I made it SO easy.  You can call me.  You can email me.  If you prefer - because you're in my family - you can call my mom.

Email RSVPs are my favorite kind.  No worries about calling during work or during dinner or after bedtime or before someone wakes up (like that's an issue for me - NOT).  I threw everyone a huge bone!!

And while I'm griping about all things wedding - OMG - why oh why do weddings bring out the worst in people????

I won't elaborate too much but to me, a wedding is one of those circumstances where everyone should just behave and do all they can to celebrate the couple.  And yet, it turns into a giant clusterfuck of one-upmanship and bullshit and weird rationalizations and all sorts of other crap.

I realize I have PTSD from my own horribly tragic wedding circumstances, and then the crappy circumstances of the "redo" so I try to keep my bitching to a minimum but - and I love ya T - I will be breathing a sigh of relief when this is over!!  I am participating gladly and to the best of my ability and I want it to me an amazing day for M and T - but I also want to bitchslap about 10 people already - and we've got another 7 weeks to go.  YIKES.

inspired

Based on my last rambling post, I felt inspired to take - and now post - a few pics of my fall flowers.  I love the way the sunlight looks in the fall - dappled and not as blinding - and I tried to capture that light and the gorgeous colors here.

There is something neat about the perspective in this picture.  I'm not sure what it is.  These cosmos overtook one of my gardens this summer/fall - they are small (maybe only slightly bigger than a half dollar) but because of this angle, it looks like a field of them.  (Well....there is a field of them but it isn't as big as this picture might portray.)

I love pansies.  I love that these come back every year, change colors slightly each year, and then change colors across the seasons (spring --> fall).  The color right now is gorgeous.

Our pumpkins and gourds are growing really slowly this season - I think it's the heat combined with our pesky woodchuck.  The gourd flowers are so dainty - there's something contradictory about that.

ok I'm not done yet

I want a new camera.  I love photography.  I love taking pictures.  I love capturing these sweet or amazing or stressful moments in time.  I enjoy looking through the lens at the ordinary, in a strange or extraordinary or exceptional way.  I love seeing the unexpected or seeing the crispness of life and light - and capturing that in a photo.

I have 3 digital cameras.  One has been comandeered by G.  One is loaded with sand but is pocket-sized - so it's the one that's always in my purse or travel bag.  The last one is the nicest - but they are all point and shoot.  I want an SLR.  I want to tap my Dad's brain for ways to take these pics, adjust my lenses, and develop my pics.  I want to be able to take my (some say good) eye and my camera and bring that beauty and amazement to life.  I love taking pictures of people but I also love architecture.

The SLR is on my list - it's BEEN on my list but I just can't pull the trigger.

Here's the weird thing about me.  I was a math major in college with a double-quasi minor in Spanish and comp sci.  Yeah - I'm a TOTAL nerd.  A science nerd at that.  I have an organized, logical brain.

I remember this logical mind being a part of every facet of my life from young childhood.

And yet...somewhere buried inside this ridiculously concrete brain is a creative side - thus making me a confused, tortured, contradiction.

I saw glimpses of that creativity from a young age.  I picked up a flute at 8 and, much to the chagrin of my instructor, put it together, made a sound, and started playing.  Reading music was easy and I could *feel* it, which is good since I'm deaf as a doornail in 1 ear.  (This makes for an interesting off-pitch problem without an electronic tuner.  Or someone without a deaf ear.  ;-)  )

I also used to see concrete (oh the irony) examples of this when I'd take personality tests.  You know the 1 with the 4 - concrete sequential, abstract sequential, concrete random, abstract random? Yeah...you'd think I'd be in the farthest corner of concrete sequential...or not....somehow I was straddling this weird area around concrete sequential and random, yet hovering near abstract sequential as well.  Ah yea - a CONTRADICTION if there ever were one.

But now that I'm an adult - despite being this logical, ridiculously OCD person...forget it.  I'm like the absent-minded professor with some craziness thrown in for good measure.  I love creating things - knitting, sewing, crafting in some way.  I especially love to quilt.  Oh please - shocking right?  Math and creativity.  There is this little part of me that would happily give up my dorky systems analyst job right now if I thought there was any freakin' way I could make some sort of reasonable living making quilts.

The sad thing is that I have grown accustomed to the reasonably decent salary that my dorky math nerd job cranks out.  Oops.

So here I stand - a somehow slightly tortured pragmatist, who will squeeze in her creativity here and there for now, thereby keeping in touch with it, while I churn my way through the normalcy of my life and my big old nerd job - with some Mommying in there for good measure of course.

It seems like a reasonable compromise for now.  But it makes me yearn for a time where I have the time - the time to be both of me.

In the meantime - a few of my more recent "pieces" and pics.

long weekends

It's Sunday night on a long weekend which means that I don't have Sunday dread.  Of course, it also means that Monday dread will be about 25 times worse.  Yikes!

It's quiet in my house.  Our weekend guests went home.  The kid is sleeping.  The hubby has been sleeping almost as long as the kid.  ;-)

Silence is a funny thing.  I love this quiet time when I get get things done or just relax a bit.  But it also gets me thinking.  Tonight, I went through a load of hard copy photos to start, organizing them by recipient.  Then I put the rest back on my desk - I need to scrap with them soon - but when that will happen - who knows?

Afterwards, I started making a new list.  Check that - I added to a very long list that I had started earlier in the evening.  In the next 6 weeks, G has at least 6 soccer games, plus double that many practices, plus I have T's shower and wedding, plus I need to make G's Halloween costume.  How the hell do people do this with more than one kid?!?!?!?

Needless to say, while my list gave me some feeling of stability and direction, it also overwhelmed me a bit.  Let's face it - I pretty much want to putter in my garden and sit on my ass tomorrow.  It isn't happening - too much to do!

I'm not complaining - honestly, I'm just tired and I thinking I'm rambling a bit.

On another note - I think I have a cavity.  Ugh.

All right, this is a totally useless blog entry so I'll sign off for now.  I'm feeling very distracted - I have a lot of thought-provoking crap to say - but not right now.  Introspection, I fear, will stress me out.  :-(

music soothes all

As I might have mentioned, I've been very stressed lately - work, child, personal life - lots of things weighing on my mind.  I find music to be the ultimate cure for what ails me when it comes to stress.

There are a couple of songs I've been using to soothe my frazzled nerves lately.  Here's one!

Out of Tune - Sarah McLachlan
I love love love Sarah.  She can sing a Barney song and make me a happy woman.  Sarah evokes a certain set of memories for me that are just lovely.  This song is off her recent released and I just love it - the lyrics and the sound of her voice, and how she can amazingly hit the accidentals all over this song without going sharp.  AMAZING.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbCIfsm0gpc

Behind our door, there's no war


No burning towers, just hours of peace

Between us at least

No pretense no violence makes no sense



It isn't my heart that's grown cold

The same mistakes are getting old

I'm lost for words I don't know what to do

But when I'm lying here with you

And the whole world's out of tune

You're the one and only voice that makes things right

So stay with me tonight



Behind our door there's no hunger

No one trying to sell me heaven

Just loving arms it's just tonight

I don't want to hear 'bout our trying times

Don't wanna know about lost children,

About someone held for ransom



It isn't my heart that's grown cold

The same mistakes are getting old

I'm lost for words I don't know what to do

But when I'm lying here with you

And the whole world's out of tune

You're the one and only voice that makes things right

So stay with me tonight

my "baby" is a 3rd grader!

It's official.  Sniffle.  He reported that his new teacher is very nice, that he had a nervous stomach for part of the day, and that he was "a little embarassed" to admit to his classmates that he's currently reading "1776" by David McCullough (he's really reading it - crazy!!).  Oh he also said that Miss B said he had "an amazingly large vocabulary" and that he was her best student.  NOTE - I believe the former.  NOT the latter.