This is me...not sleeping. I really hate it when I cannot sleep. Not that I've even tried. Not really. It's almost a dread of going to lie down. I don't know why.

I've surfed the web, read email, read junk mail, looked through pictures, read blogs. Its almost 3am and I am still unwilling to just go lay down.

I'm tired, don't get me wrong. I've worked hard today, cleaning and sorting and doing laundry. Maybe that's whats wrong, I'm too tired? Can you be too tired to sleep? Sounds like its crazy.

I did find an old picture of me, way back when I was 21.


Yeah that really is, or was me. A friend's brother took this for me. The deal was he could use any of the four rolls of film he took for his portfolio and I got a portrait for my parents for Christmas. This wasn't the shot I chose for the portrait. I picked the one where I was leaning forward from the tree I had been leaning on, laughing. They never did get the portrait to hang up but I gave them the picture. They liked it.

I kept this one for myself, though I never could quite grasp that it was me. I like it though. Its that one picture everyone has that they like of themselves...yep this one is it. The only one. Seems like forever ago. It was taken the same year I met Hawk, just at the beginning of the year. We met after that summer.

I thought I was fat then. Hell, I thought I was fat when I weighed 118 lbs in high school too. I didn't know what fat was. lol Life sure is an education.

I am going to try to get a new picture taken. I don't like posed studio pictures but I have some friends who are photographers and maybe I can get them to just take some casual shots for me. Then I will post the before and after pics for the weight loss. A few people have asked me to do that and I guess hitting 40 this year has broken down my vanity wall cause, well I don't care lol.

If I can take a web cam pic of myself at 3am with no makeup on I can certainly survive a before and after post. *grins*

I was always so conscious and critical of myself that I hated pics taken of me. I have none of the fun candid shots all my friends have of good times etc...only the ones others have given me. Lately I've indulged in a few. I got a picture in December of me with three of my oldest and dearest friends. Like family they are. I think I will start posting them, regardless of the inner twitches.

See what insomnia does to you? lolol

It's cleaning day. Hawk has been out of town for almost two weeks and comes home tomorrow so I am trying to surprise him by having the WHOLE house clean. Oddly enough since the older kids moved out and I've stream lined the living room and gone through a lot of the things that lived here that didn't actually belong to me and boxed them up, the house stays fairly put together. Once we took the carpet out of the living room life got easier. Even the kids keep things pretty ok in their room and it is just a matter of making them go pick up. They are all finally old enough to understand and for the most part obey when sent to pick up so its the floors and bathrooms, and the dreaded kitchen that are hardest. With the new bed our bedroom isn't bad at all. I have about four loads of laundry, including bedding and its all done. The smalls picked up their rooms and all I really need to do is go in and clean out from under the beds and reorganize their dresser drawers. The kitchen is the big task. I am splitting it into two days. Today I will do all the dishes and clean the counters and floors. Tomorrow I tackle the fridge and cabinet faces. For now I have done the bathrooms and still need to do the floors in there, vacuum the hall and bedrooms. I have the chicken thawing out for panko chicken tenders for dinner with mashed potatoes and okra. This afternoon I am going to round up the kids and head for the grocery store. I found an HEB close enough to justify the drive from the house so we will go over there and stock up for the week. Niky made lunch for he and the girls and I can keep working on the bathrooms By tonight it should be relatively done. I just need to do the floors really in the living room and bedrooms and the baths. That's the big task for today. Sadly I do not resemble the pic above, I look more like this when all is said and done.



Still, strangely enough I am having a pretty good day. Check with me when its all over and see if I am still chipper. lol

"Modular home" anxiety and Ginger snap mornings

I love this picture. I would definitely live in this cottage if given my "druthers". It just looks like me. *nods* Like a cross between a cottage in a wood and a hobbit hole. Perfection.

The move progression eeks forward. We are downscaling our three bedroom house slowly so it will fit into our three bedroom modular home. Weekends we work to get the land and houses ready for the great migration to Dayton. The hurricane helped with the clearing the best it could but in the process took two of our trailers (er Modular homes) down with the trees so we are trying to patiently wait our turn for the insurance assessment to see if we get new ones to replace them or maybe one new one and one pole barn or ...no new ones and a pole barn and a small check. (Hey, we are forever optimistic here in the labyrinth!)

I try to keep positive about selling the house and keep in my mind the idea that we will be able to cover our note and get about 10k above and beyond so we can move. (Keep your fingers crossed for me please) That would mean we could move the position of the Modular home (gotta keep remembering to say that, the word trailer makes my hubby twitch) and perhaps enable us to remodel and make it as nice as we would prefer to live in.

I look forward to starting the business and the work in the gardens. I will keep pics and updates on it as we go here...just in case someone actually stops by to read them.

Today is a ginger snap day...I could use a nice cup of hot tea and some ginger snaps.

I love the mornings when fall sneaks up on us....

Shadow people

I'm noticing an increase in the weirdness that is me....

Always around mid July and August I start noticing more and more strange situations. Seeing half shadows, waking up in the middle of the night because of voices or knocking on the wall or windows.

When I was younger I would actually stop to talk to people and have others tell me I was nuts because they saw no one and I had a shadow that frequented the cracked door of my room. I always thought it was "just me" till it scared the bahjeezus out of my older brother one night. I kinda felt better after that, I mean....at least I knew it wasn't just me.

Lately the shadow people have been an issue. Those dark, almost there shapes you see in the corners of your vision. The last week or so I've been awakened by various noises or voices....to the point I hate to look up at the mirror opposite the bed over my bathroom vanity when I am half asleep.

Tonight it was knocking on my window. I had the new roommate up and outside to search for "pesky neighborhood teens" who might be out and about at 4:30 in the morning knocking on people's windows to scare them but ....of course, no one was found.

I don't know why I still, always look for the logical explanation first...I should know by now there is not some teen on the roof or outside in the shadows having a giggle at the silly woman inside but I almost wish there were.

It lasts usually through November, getting progressively worse in nature. I don't know why it peeters off then, maybe the worry about the holidays takes my focus away from it, or maybe the thinning between is not as much by then.

Who knows...but this getting up at 3 and 4 am really does suck rocks...

So far it has been an interesting summer! Thought I would catch up with everyone and try to start blogging again. The pool is closed for maintenance today so I have a reprieve from the kids and the other moms.
Last I wrote I had just been fired from my job. Oddly I was heartbroken. I was beside myself with panic for the first day or so....crushed that I had lost the job I loved so much. Then...not so much.
Slowly I realized I did love the actual work I was doing...and most of the people I worked with were fabulous, couldn't ask for better. I certainly loved the paycheck and that's where most of the panic stemmed from....but I hated the commute, and gas was on the rise. As time wore on all the panic left and a huge sigh of relief replaced it, my shoulders climbed out of my ears and life, though now complicated by financial worry seemed somehow much sweeter.
I discovered I HATE working in the corporate world. I've since spent WONDERFUL time with my kids, swimming, playing, goofing off and running amuck. We eek by on savings or month to month but we are making it and an odd sense of rightness glosses over the anxious bits.
My mom and stepdad came to visit and another layer of purpose came into focus. I am starting my own business. My stepdad developed a raised bed gardening system and a soil used in that system and I am going to be the Houston distribution office...though....things are still in the "figuring the logistics out" stage. We took a road trip to Missouri and Oklahoma in June and the week long trip turned into an almost three week long trip with exciting ups and downs. We found the PERFECT 130 acre farm/ranch, within our set budget but things did not pan out for buying it....yet. BUT now we all know what we want!
When the blow came that we couldn't get the land and farm we all fell in love with it was daunting....the whole "How can we do this now..." question came up but my hubby was jazzed. Excited....and extremely positive! He said "we will just do it from the back yard and eventually when the company grows enough we will expand and buy some land or a store front and go from there." Up till last week we were going with that far more complicated and difficult version of the plan...but doable none the less, trying to stay positive. (Hard to do when you're so scared but hey...we try)
Now the Universe has offered another avenue...a scary one that involves moving about half an hour, forty five minutes out of town but...still, oddly comforting and doable. We went to see the land and housing and after the initial butterfly gut we are all pretty positive it is workable. Now we just wait and see what the money side looks like so cross those fingers for me!
This weekend we all got together to discuss it and had sea food that was uber yummy, shrimp and salmon. I've been trying to get more sea food and fish into the family menu for the kids and for myself and so far things have been pretty well received. Even picky Niky loves fish!
My older brother is in Europe taking classes at the Globe theatre in London and seeing all the museums for another week. I read his travel blog and laugh and smile, excited that he is having an adventure and enjoying things there so very much. I do hope he can make it an annual thing and travel in the Summer from now on. He enjoys it so much!
So yeah, still unemployed...oddly not ooooverly concerned about it though. Yet...lol
I will keep you guys posted on the business end, and in the mean time if you are curious about the Raised bed gardening I am talking about go to www.gardeningrevolution.com and take a look. I will be selling the soil product and teaching people how to build the beds and plant, harvest and even hopefully...eventually how to can and cook with the food from their own gardens! Times are getting tight for everyone, produce and fruit...food in general is getting so expensive and I don't know about you but the produce I do see in the stores is ugly and sad looking... raising my own small garden (or big if the opportunity pans out) to help take some pressure off the bills and give my kids a healthy alternative to the tasteless store bought stuff in cans is something I am really excited about!
Well...that's all for now. If you haven't heard from me or thought I was just being an unfriendly snot it really wasn't the case. I was just running around like a nut from state to state, stumbling from hope to fear to hope again...trying to sort out things from day to day.
Just like every body else. ;)

Drowning Timmy

It amazes me the ability we have as people to function day to day, and the variety of people that do and don't seem to master the most common of common sense.

For example.... I work with a young African American woman who is very savvy, very street smart and very quick to pick up on any instruction offered for the position we do, which by the way is an ever changing and ever shifting set of corporate rules that practice a flexibility only rivaled by the numerous branches of organized religion. She is a joy to work with because if she does not understand something she is gutsy enough to step up and ask whoever is near, be they support desk analyst or CIO of the corporation.

At the other end of the spectrum is another co-worker from a different department. We will call her co-worker number two. Approximately the same age group as the first, same ethnic background and make up and yet co-worker number two is very, well... blond. Not her hair but her personality. Now I do not say this lightly being a blond myself, but...gods love her she is very blond.

Case in point: Co-worker number two came to our department frantic and distraught. She explained that her 9 year old daughter is out of town this week and will be returning this weekend and that she (co-worker number two) had brought her daughters precious (and smelly) pet turtle to work with her today to let it "out" for awhile and to get a "bath".

Let me explain....we have beautiful cut stone koi ponds between the two office buildings that make up our complex with many exotic and colorful koi. Recently the building management has added a couple of water turtles, large and small to the mix for variety and for the amusement of the buildings inhabitants as they sit outside and smoke or talk or whatever on the wooden benches, tables and chairs they have provided.

Co-worker number two wanted "Timmy the turtle" to air out...stretch his legs a little and try to wear off the smell he seemed to languish in at home. As she explained the situation she confided in us that when she put "Timmy" into the koi pond he sank to the bottom and she has not seen him since. She thought he would enjoy the pond like the other turtles, maybe make some friends and then she would simply retrieve him when her shift was over and take him home to a clean atrium. Kind of like turtle day camp.

It was at this point I looked at co-worker number one, and co-worker number 3 (a very savvy and quick witted brunette *nods*) and tried to convey with my eyes my concern over Timmy's well being. Not to mention how were we supposed to break the news to co-worker number two that not -all- turtles can swim? She pleaded with us to keep an eye out for the mischievous and wayward pet, and to please "let her know if he surfaces" ....

We did not have the heart to tell her that poor Timmy is most likely in a far better place where there is no smell to offend the senses.

The difficult part? How do we explain to co-worker number two that there are box turtles and terrapins, and that sometimes beloved pets have ill fated accidents at the hands of their well meaning owners?

Do we gently take her aside and tell her she offed her kids turtle and she should spend her evening hours praying his twin resides in a neighborhood pet store?

How will she explain that mommy was just trying to let Timmy play with some new friends and she didn't know he couldn't swim?

We were amazed that a grown woman didn't seem to know that there is more than one kind of turtle...and yet perhaps she has never had a turtle before? Maybe where she grew up they didn't have turtles? No public television...no Animal Planet?

Somehow, I think the 9 year old will take the news about Timmy far better than her mother.

I vote we tell co-worker number two we saw Timmy beating feet for the freeway, a little sign on his tuckous that said "California or bust!"

Good luck to you Timmy, wherever you may be, I cannot help but think you might be better off After all, it was only a matter of time before the Fabreeze came into play....

Because he said so...

Other than your significant other, who do you call when you are afraid? Panic stricken, anxiety riddled? You know you have friends but who's name comes to your lips first? Who's words draw you back off the ledge?

For me the answer was both obvious and a surprise. I have a lot of close friends who would always be there should I need to be talked down out of the tower, some who would climb it and help me pick of the offenders with high powered rifles. I know that without a doubt, but one stands out when times get tough, why? Because he simply refuses to accept the bad things. He simply says "No, I don't think so." When I was waiting impatiently, money running out, groceries down to a head of lettuce and a hand full of trail mix for me and the kids, waiting to hear if I had this job, he told me. "Of course you do, I've decided. You do, and thats it." And you know what? I did! He has repeatedly proven this theory in a variety of situations.

I am having surgery on Friday, something I need and want to change the quality of my life but naturally the idea of going "under the knife" makes me shake in my boots. I wrote him and asked him to "make it so" so to speak and expected his usual one line response where he affirms without discussion that it is going to happen his way, no questions, because he said so. Instead I got a very long email from him, leaving me no room for doubt, no room for error, saying everything...everything I needed to hear to know I would come though this without hesitation or question. The last line in the email struck home really hard for me. "This is not a "things should be okay" manifesto. I had already decided it would be uneventful, I just forgot to let you know."

Made me laugh and cry and something restless inside me settled into place. Like a piece of the puzzle that just didn't want to fit snugged down into place with a soft safe sound of finality. Its not that my husband, whom I love with a ferocity that he will attest to, could not convince me, its that I could feel his worry for me. His own fears show beneath the surface because he loves me and fears anything that could take me from him without explanation.My friend has no fear, no hesitation, no room for the possibility of loss. He simply does not accept it in his reality, therefore it cannot possibly oppose his will.

For that I love him deeply, not that he would ever doubt it, because a long time ago....he said so.