Just in time for the weekend!

mememe, I me my…that’s what my parents would say. “Stop talking about yourself, nobody wants to hear it.” they’d say. And, believe it or not, in real life I don’t talk about myself. When I do it’s very self conciously and quite short lived. But, here on my blog I can talk about me talk about my talk about i me my…anyway.

My depression of the past few weeks has lifted over the last couple of days. Like a fog bank lifting, or the peeling off of a film, just..there it goes. What a relief. I hate feeling like that. It’s difficult…no…impossible to have fun when you’re feeling like Gollum hunched at the bottom of a slime filled cave.

Now, I’m feeling fine. Fine enough that I spent some money and got SD a surprise. No, I won’t tell you what it is. It’s personal, and completely out of character for me so I know he’ll be pleased in a sort of “who are you and where’s my wife?” way.

Is this good feeling ominous? Maybe, its too early to tell. Maybe not. Maybe I’m just feeling good like a normal person.

What sucks in general is having to constantly evaluate my moods, to figure out if they’re “real” or if they’re a manifestation of my disorder. I mean, think about it. Supposed you decide to splurge and spend some money on something for your honey, something way out of character, causing Agnes McCalvinox to bust out the pipe organ and play Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in your head as you’re watching the clerk swipe the uncharacterisitc item and put it in the bag.

Ok, it’s not a sex toy. You can’t get sex toys at Walmart, not at least ones that are obvious.

So, is my desire to do something nice for my husband legitimate, or is it a symptom of a brain disease?

Does it matter?

Your Brain’s Pattern

Your mind is a creative hotbed of artistic talent. You’re always making pictures in your mind, especially when you’re bored. You are easily inspired to think colorful, interesting thoughts. And although it may be hard to express these thoughts, it won’t always be.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Tagged!

2 Word meme

1. Where is your cell phone? the desk
2. Where is your significant other? earning money
3. Your hair? stick straight
4. Your mother? blissfully busy
5. Your father? recovering nicely
6. Your favorite thing? God, kids (and popsicles)
7. Your dream last night? don’t remember
8. Your favorite drink? iced tea (with mint)
9. Your dream/goal? published
10. The room you’re in? comfortably cluttered
11. Your hobby? gardening, cooking
12. Your fear? abandonment! Tornados!
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? somewhere else
14. Where were you last night? dinner, companionship
15. What you’re not? athletic, ambitious
16. Muffins? blueberry, blackberry
17. One of your wish list items? sewing machine
18. Where you grew up? nowhere, everywhere
19. The last thing you did? drank coffee
20. What are you wearing? pink bathrobe
21. Your TV? background noise
22. Your pets? Phleud, Lily
23. Your computer? generic desktop
24. Your life? manageable, busy
25. Your mood? now what?!
26. Missing someone? Sweet Daddio
27. Your car? topless! Whoo!
28. Something you’re not wearing? bra, jewelry
29. Favorite store? Home Depot Design Expo (ok, 4 words, deal with it)
30. Your summer? VBS, sleeping late
31. Like someone? Friends and family
32. Your favorite color? cobalt blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? hmm…it’s been a while
34. Last time you cried? Wednesday evening

My Son and His Brush With The Law

About 3:00 pm yesterday, #4 and his buddy Junior came up to me and asked if they could walk to the convenience store (about 1/3 a mile away). “Do you have any money?” I asked. “No” they answered. “Well then, the answer is no, but you can walk up Cricket Bat Road as long as you stay on the other side of the ditch and not on the road.” My policy is that if they have no money and go to the store, they’ll be tempted to shoplift.

“Yes, ma’am, we will.”
“Be home by 5:30″
“Yes ma’am”

Cricket Bat Road is about a mile long. I figured if they walk to the end and walk back, they’ll come home tired and thirsty and I’d have a pitcher of Koolaid for them.

So, ’round about 5:30, I’m in the kitchen working on supper, and thinking it was time for them to be getting home when I hear a loud banging on the front door. The only person who bangs like that is the FedEx man but I’m not expecting a package. I went to the door and noticed a uniform through the window and thought perhaps it was some other package delivery service, and I opened the door to find standing there

A very stern looking Deputy Sheriff. And #4 with his head in his hands making snuffling noises.
“Ma’am, do you know where you son was?” he asked.
“Ummm…he was supposed to be on Cricket Bat Road, up that-a-way.” I pointed north.
“Well, ma’am, he was on the bypass, to the south, crossing the bypass at the Baptist Church.”
(The bypass is Statesboro’s answer to Atlanta’s Perimeter,or DC’s Beltway, and every bit as busy)
“WHAT?!”
“WHAT?!”
I’m not a cursing sort of person but this was a huge OMGWTF! moment.
I got a lecture about how unsafe the bypass is for anyone, especially children and responsibility as parents and blah blah. The whole time I’m looking at #4 and wondering how he’d look as a meat pie.
So, I asked if junior had been picked up as well, and the DS said yes, that apparently the boys had been trying to get to a friend of Junior’s house, and Junior had some idea that he lived somewhere down the bypass near the church. Which, by the way, is over 2 miles south.

Well, at least he wasn’t picked up for shoplifting, which was my first impulse.

After the Deputy left, I yelled and waved my arms around and sent him to his room (that I had spent OVER 3 hours cleaning, as a favor to him)for the night, no supper.

When Sweet Daddio got home, around 6, I said to him “Your Son did (this) and you need to go yell at him.”
So he did, and nobody rants like SD when he’s properly motivated. The end result is that #4 is grounded until puberty…ok, maybe not that long, but certainly until school starts August 1.

What I don’t know, is who starts this stuff- #4, or Junior, or if each kid is a catalyst for the other and alone they’d not get into this sort of thing but together…*boom*

I just spent the past 3 hours (minus about 20 minutes for an attack of the vapours) cleaning #4’s room. Someone in my family (who shall remain nameless) had the brilliant, BRILLIANT idea to give the boy a ream of paper for Christmas. Sounds strange? Not really, if you consider that #4 is a born aeronautical engineer, and can make amazing paper airplanes. ones that actully fly really well, and are funky and interesting. Except that, he loves doing it, and cannot throw away any paper airplane that he’s made. He’d rather just walk all over them or wad them up under the bed and desk..

Add to the airplane disaster scene , a 20 gallon tub full (ok, half full, the other half was all over the floor) of legos, dinosaur body parts, and the rods and balls of a magnetix set, crayons, countless cracker wrappers, markers, crayons, and a homemade book, lefthanded, with the cover reading “The Sword: A Book With No Pictures”. On the cover was a drawing of a sword, and inside was…nothing. No pictures. No words either but at least he’s honest.

I got his toys all sorted, airplanes and cars in this box. Windups and rubber animals in that one, army guys and weapons in another. His bed is made with a clean blanket and pillows, his clock is set and his collection of smallish animals and academic trophies dusted and shelved.

I had to stop midway through, it just got to be too much and made me very tired. So, I laid down on my bed, put Bob Holroyd on the iPod and kinda drifted off for a few, tried to anyway. Lily kept jumping up and licking my elbow. She has this sort of Banzai lick mode, where she staps at you with her tongue, which is too soft to do anything but lick, but you know you’d be poked full of holes if it weren’t for that. It’s unbelievably annoying, but the middle of the bed is uncomfortable for laying on, so I just yelled at her until she hid under the bed.

I’m not 100% done with the room. I lack a little dusting and some putting away of stuff, but if I hang it up and decide to be done, #4 will be so dismayed by the lack of clutter that he won’t notice the dust on the windowsill.

Now I’m kinda tired, needing some lunch but not knowing what.

more cat pictures

Savannah Scottish Games

Last Saturday, we went to the Savannah scottish Games, where I took pictures, ate scones with strawberries and cream, and kept half an eye on #4, as he’d spent his allowance on a wooden sword and shield. Sweet Daddio came along, mostly to humor me, I think, since he’s Irish. I kept looking at all these men in their kilts, thinking how much better SD looks in one than these fellows with their uniformly skinny shanks. Alas, the fabric needed to make the right sort of kilt for a County Kildare kilt runs along the lines of *eep* $100 a yard, and needing 8 yards. So, SD in a kilt will just have to remain a fantasy. Oh well.

Here we go.

Dancers

Musicians

Georgia Scottish Irregulars

Ath-a-letes

Don’t feel much like writing today. The monster has returned and is chewing on the inside of my head (metaphorically speaking, I don’t actually think there is a real monster in there). Maybe tomorrow.

Bapppy Hirphbay to mi!

Today, gentle reader, is my 43rd birthday, and I’m not ashamed to say it. Since we live in a dry county, taking me to dinner tonight would be pointless because I couldn’t get the margarita so necessary to accompany the chicken stuffed ahuacato that’s the Thing to Eat at the Restaurant of My Choice. So, we went last night, and the ahuacato was married to a duo of tasty margaritas, when this mariachi band came up behind me, oh so quietly (I noticed people around snickering, but knew not why, they were that quiet), and slapped a sombrero the size of Rhode Island on my head and sang Happy Birthday. Sometime during the hysteria someone put a tequila shooter in front of me, so there was that on top of the 2 margaritas. Sweet Daddio said I had that very careful, deliberate gait of the self-concious drunk as we left the restaurant, but it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t anticipate the shooter.

We spent yesterday at the Savannah Scottish Games, I got tons of pictures and a couple of videos. I’ll post about all that later. Lemme say this…whoever decided to hold those games where they held them, should be awarded something nice, or held up as an example or something. On the banks of the Moon River, with a hundred huge live-oak trees giving shade and a closed campus so you feel secure letting your 9 yr old run amuck. It was very, very good.

Ok, it’s Friday then…

Let’s see, Mom and Dad are due in this afternoon. I need to sweep, give the bathrooms a quick swish, make sure the guest room is ready. For supper tonight, I’m going to fix something they’ve never had before but I’ve a feeling they’ll like: Baja fish tacos. Yum.

Hopefully all the busyness will keep the monsters in their cage. I’m forcing optimism.

Tomorrow we’re going to the Scottish Games. My camera batteries are fully charged, and the chip reformatted, so I ought to be able to take a million pictures. I am really looking forward to going. Getting out of the house and out somplace wonderful (the venue for the Games is truly beautiful- this 300 yr old Boys Home with huge trees and the Moon River…just gorgeous).

#3 announced that he’s a A Better Offer and won’t be going to the games with us. he did it politely, with a touch of deference “Mom I’d really like to go but the Twins invited me to the hunt club and there’s a drawing for a Remington shotgun and it’s the twins, and they invited me and, it’s the twins…)
For those of you who don’t know, #3 has a strong friendship with these twin girls, dates them off and on, sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both at the same time, and their parents really like him…well, you get the picture. It’s hard to compete with an offer like that, and it means he won’t have to wear the kilt.

I think I *just* figured out part of my emotional problem- I haven’t been eating. I’ve had no appetite, which is very unusual for me, but there just isn’t anything that seems tempting. A while back (like years ago) Sweet Daddio figured out that a big piece of beef in the form of a perfectly cooked steak would mitigate an oncoming depression, and so when he sees me behaving erratically, he’d feed me a sirloin, and it helps. Maybe I should eat something.

Plus all my pants are falling off of me. I mean, not this minute, but you know what I mean. My size 20’s I’ve been wearing for the past 6 or 7 years I can pull off without unbuttoning them. I’m betting I could wear 16’s, if I got the gumption up to go to the store and try them on. That would be cool, but I’d rather be a size 20 and feel comfortable in my psychological skin, than be a 16 and feel like gnawing off my fingers. I guess that’s what happens when you quit eating.

So, I’m off to clean, and run the battery down on my ipod by listening to something too loud to hear the phone ring in case #4 falls out of the tour bus and cracks his head on the Savannah pavement (field trip today, a Historic Trolley Tour of Olde Towne Savannah..you could not pay me enough to take 60 3rd graders on such a tour. Well, maybe for a million $ I would, but no less)