Keep a journal

Dear Diary,

I feel anxious and bummed out today. My arm/shoulder is off again and I got a letter from the DMV today saying that my driver’s license is going to be suspended because some ding-dong backed into me at Target and ruined his bumper and for some reason they think I didn’t have insurance (which I did and do) and so they keep sending me stuff about the “accident” and I can’t get ahold of anyone to clear it up, and since I was running late to pick up my son from school I didn’t thoroughly check out the numbskull who hit me, instead I just hurridly, trustingly, STUPIDLY took his info from him and went on my way with a scuffed up bumper thinking it was no big deal….(taking a moment to breathe). Anyhow, I also hate having subscribers. I love 43 things because it has given me focus and an outlet to just write whatever, but seriously, I get bummed out if people unsubscribe to me. I try to be like, who the *&%$ cares but it doesn’t work for me. I know people change their minds, get bored, decide I’m a dork, or whatever and that’s totally fine but it still bums me out and I wish I couldn’t see if I had subscribers or not. I also get bugged about people who write about their subscribers (who are they, how many do I have, how can I get more, how can I make sure everything I write impresses them) it’s all BS and I don’t want to do it, so actually I am annoying to myself and that stinks! Also, I nearly killed myself this morning (accidentally, of course) which was really retarted of me. Our plumming is backed up so if we run the washer, shower, or any other thing that requires water, the bathrooms flood and the garage as well. So anyhow, I turned my hair dryer on and layed it on the ground to keep my feet warm (and dry the floor) while I was on the toilet (sorry!!), and then decided to just keep it on while I was in the shower too. Anyhow, when I am finally done with my shower, I open the door and see that the running hair dryer is sitting in about an inch of water. The water had come up from the under the toilet while I was in the shower and filled up the bathroom. Luckily I got it unplugged but feel so stupid since my kids probably would have come in to find me electrocuted on the floor of the bathroom and then gotten electrocuted themselves! Man, that was dumb!!!
SO anyhow, I feel gloomy today and wish I could get in bed and read and sleep without feeling like a big, giant, guilty slouch but my kids are off today and in rare form, so I get to sit around with my flooded bathrooms, with a pile of dishes and laundry that cannot be done (I guess I should be thankful for the excuse anyhow!) and feel BLAH! I will talk to you later diary. Thanks for listening.

Dear Diary,

Today I have a few things to do. Yesterday I had my second day of classes. I finally decided what I want to be when I grow up!! He He. I am going to take what I love to do for free and start doing it for money. I had gone around in circles trying to decide on a major (it’s taken nearly 15 years!!!) going from fashion merchandising to child development to wavering between social work, psychology, and outdoor recreation! Man diary, sometimes I feel like a homing pigeon without a home! I know I BELONG somewhere and that there is something I am meant to do but I just wish that it was written in a manual somewhere so I wouldn’t feel so lost!!! Anyhow, at one of my favorite volunteer sites, I was looking at the badges of two of the workers and I thought to myself, “I would like to do what they do!” And funny enough, it was included as an emphasis for one of the majors I was already considering. I took it as a sign and finally I decided, I am going to do THAT! It feels good to have a focus now, and I feel like I am on the right path. Now back to things I have to do today. I have to study!! I want to raise my gradepoint average. Last semester I had one class and got an A. This semester I have two classes and want TWO A’s! It just stinks because I have less time than ever, with the kids and their activities, and now visiting my horse who lives 35 minutes away takes a lot of time too. Plus I want to be able to spend time with my family, not just FIT them in to my schedule so I know it is going to be tough! I know it can be done though, there are so many amazing people in the world who have had so much more on their plate and they just determine to make it work. That is what I want to do to. For today, I am going to take my youngest daughter and a boy I am watching to the zoo for a couple of hours, then pick up my other two from school, try keep the peace for a while with some cookies, then take the oldest to a birthday party, run an errand or two, pick her up, get some dinner, drop them off for a bit at my mom and dad’s house, then study! It’s funny that I am actually excited to study on a Friday night, but I am. I used to do bad in school because I couldn’t focus and get things done but now I have a goal which makes it so much better. Maybe tomorrow I should plan a fun day for the family as a reward. I think I will. Well, I just wanted to write everything out because I was starting to feel overwhelmed and knew it would help to just unload some of it and leave room for goodness. I will talk to you later! Thanks for listening, you’re the best!!

Your friend,
Me

“Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance, and none can say why some fields will blossom and others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices in life no more easily made. And give. Give in any way you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than how it is shared, and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.”

Hi Diary,

I am sad today. I got my hopes up about buying Kelley again only to have them dashed down by his owner! I know they need money but it is hard for me to understand why money is more important than the well-being of a fellow creature (they won’t take money down and payments—boo hoo!). I am just heartbroken but at least now I can move on and know that I did everything, short of horse-napping him, that I could have possibly done in order to continue our relationship. I even went so far as to basically act like an obsessed stalker so that I could let it be known that I REALLY wanted him. Oh well. When you need money, you need money, and I guess that takes prescidence sometimes whether I like it or not. I just hope that they don’t expect me to rescue them when they move in 2 weeks and have no one to take him (although they know they could now!). God, I love him! Okay enough about that. I must move on!

In other (bad) news, I think I am getting a sty on my lower eyelid. It hurts to blink and I can see it swelling up. I want to rub it because it kind of itches but it hurts to do that! I haven’t had a sty since like the 80’s. I guess I will try that special home remedy I read about and put a chamomile tea bag on it to see if that helps. It doesn’t help matters that I am all grouchy and PMeSsy (see the MESS in there? That’s how I feel today!) anyways but just add a fat, red, swollen lower lid to the equation why don’t you. I suck at math so how am I going to figure this one out?! Okay, I’m leaving now.

Dear Diary,

Real quickly, I just have to say that I am so annoyed that the news media keeps blabbing about the falling gas prices and how great it is. It pisses me off that they are pawning it off as some sudden, out-of-the-blue, lucky twist of fate that gas prices are miraculously falling lately. If they can be this low now (which really isn’t that low, except compared to how high they’d had it jacked up), why couldn’t it have been this low when the prices were so high? It is such a crock and it infuriates me that they think people are so darn dumb that they’d not realize it! I wish that people would just say, isn’t it wonderful that Election day is coming and the prices at the pump have gone down? I am open minded enough to vote for a Republican if I think that they will do a good, honest job, but these rediculous tactics make me think twice. I have to wonder if the prices were made so high so that they would be able to lower them and say how hard they are working to help us poor little, working class folks be able to afford gas. Too bad we can’t just write off gas bills like they can! If they can lower the prices to get a few votes next week, then they could have lowered them back when it was upwards of $3.00 a gallon. Give me a break! The reason there is not an alternative fuel alrerady is because it would be giving away a huge chunk of the government’s power over us. Is it really that hard to make a vehicle that runs on something other than gasoline? No, I don’t think so (since it’s already been done many times over). Can it really be that hybrid cars cost SOOOO much more to make that they have to make them thousands more? Um, again probably not. It seems we are just led to believe these things. May sound a little paranoid (actually I’m more pissy, really) but it’s true. Okay, hang on while I climb down….Alright, sorry for the rant Diary, but it just makes me really mad. Seems like I’ve been in a fighting mood lately. Wonder what’s up with that? Well I’ll talk to you later!

Dear Diary,

I can hardly believe that it is already November!! I sure must be getting old because I find myself saying the dreaded phrase, or variations of, “I can’t believe how time flies!” on a regular basis! But really, I can’t believe that this year is already winding down. I need to start getting ready for Christmas so that I can relax (I know, who relaxes during the holidays?!) and enjoy it before it comes and goes.

Last night was lots of fun, as Halloween usually is. My only complaint is that I never have enough time to get the house cleaned, costumes ready, and all of the spooky effects put out, at well as carve all of the pumpkins BEFORE people start knocking at our door! I am always frantically carving as the first trick-or-treater arrives, the kids are running amuck, and friends are arriving all while I am still trying to prepare! It doesn’t help that I get more and more pumpkins to carve every year (9 this year) and that I like to carve most of them with the Nightmare Before Christmas theme. It takes SOOOO long and my neck and hands are sore by the time I’m done. I thought cleaning them out the night before would make things easier but it seemed just as frantic! I need to hire a pumpkin carving person to come and help me on Halloween next year! It was fun though. Some friends came by and most of us went out with the kids while a few stayed behind to pass out candy. Between just my three kids, we got buckets (literally!) of candy. I don’t know how we can possibly eat it all!! It was kind of quiet on our street this year but it was lots of fun anyhow. I am already making mental notes for a more organized and prepared next year!

On another note, I do have something that I am so thrilled about to share. I put out an ad to try to find some people to do the ride and tie race with (goal #25) and yesterday I got an email from someone who has a horse and is looking for a partner to try it with too. We were happy because we were both female and just looking to get into the sport and have fun. We plan to meet up soon and work out a plan to get off our butts and start training for a race. I am so excited and I can’t wait to get started! It will be a blast, I know!

Well, one final thing, I DVR’d the movie the Exorcist and have been wanting to watch it (I actually watched the first 3rd of the movie so nothing really freaky has happened yet) but I have heard so many people say that it is the scariest movie ever and that some won’t ever watch it again. This sucks because it makes me want to watch it even more but freaks me out too because once I watch it, it will be in my head FOREVER!! I don’t believe in possessions but I know it will still probably scare the poop out of me, to put it nicely! Actually it is on pause in my living room right now, but I have to go outside to let the dogs in and I’m afraid if I watch it I’ll be too chicken go outside to let them in, or that when I do I’ll have a heart attack in my backyard while my family snoozes away inside! :) Maybe I will just wait until I can watch it during the day. That should be a little less scary, although I’ve been told it won’t make a difference. Yikes! Can it be that bad? I guess I’ll find out. Well, Diary, I guess I will just let in the pooches and get to bed early. I think I’ll do a little light reading instead. That seems a lot less risky! I will talk to you later!

Love,
Me

Yay, it’s Halloween! I am busy carving 9 pumpkins and getting the house ready for the night. I love, love, love Halloween! I’ve got a biker guy, a batgirl, and of course, a princess. I have tons to do so I am going to go get started. I will finish the entry later to talk about how fun the night was and how sad I am that it is over. See you soon Diary.

I think I just got “cheer bombed”! How cool is that? Now I am off to school to take a test. Hope I do good. I’ve been so tired this past week trying to cram for it so I can’t wait until it’s over. When I get home later I will have to give out all those cheers I got! Talk to you later.

Dear Diary,
Sometimes I am afraid to whistle too much for fear that I will one day have lips like a smoker. Crazy, I know, but it crosses my mind every time I whistle.

Dear Diary,

I feel like I am being sucked into a black hole lately! It feels like I am stuck in this awful game of catch-up but never quite able to win. It’s like my life is scattered along the sides of an escalator with the best, most important things at the very top, and I am just spending my time trying to get there. The only problem is that the elevator is going very fast, too fast, in fact, AND the wrong way, so the more I try to get there, the more tired and behind I become, never ever reaching the top! It’s exhausting and I am not sure where to start to get there. Maybe take the elevator or the stairs instead?
This is just an example of things. This weekend was another crazy one. The kids had their Halloween carnival at school and since I am the room mom for one of the kids, I had to think of something the class could make to decorate their booth. I ran around like a headless chicken trying to get pictures of the kids so that they could cut out their heads and make themselves a body that was dressed up as whatever they were going to be. I also was in charge of putting together this big basket that was going to be raffled off at the carnival and the day before the carnival we had only 2 small donations! So all day I dashed from store to store with my 3-year-old in tow asking for donations and looking for cheap things that I could buy. No one wanted to donate, or the managers were “to lunch” so I frantically started buying the biggest and cheapest things I could find to make our basket look full. We didn’t even have a chance to eat before running to the school to toss everything together. It ended up quite nice, but I spent more money personally than I should have had to. Then I get home and The Home Depot calls and says they will donate $75 to us! That was really great. Unfortunately between picking up the gift cards and getting them to the auction (this part makes me want to cry really bad!!) they were lost, stolen, or thrown away by accident. I dug through nasty trash, ran home and back, and home and back again, frantically trying to find them with no luck. I also had a volunteer commitment early on the morning of the carnival, then I had to desperately try to find a costume for my son to wear, then run home to get everything for the carnival, run to the carnival, set everything up, run home, get 2 of the kids in their costumes and one off to karate class, run back to the carnival to work in the booth (ended up working there ALL day in the 90 degree Santa Ana heat wave because hardly anyone bothered to show up to work). And this was a high labor booth to run too! We had to dash the giant parts of Mr. Potato Head to the back of the big inflatable after every kid was done running through the obstacle course so I was dripping sweat for 6 hours straight, had no chance to eat or drink, and worse than that, I never even got a chance to do a single thing with my own kids! It stunk! And by the end of the carnival so did I!! I was exhausted, sore, and super sweaty! I couldn’t wait to get home. Even if it is a terribly, messy, unattended to home most of the time lately. This is where the black whole originates. I am always trying to make it to the top of that escalator in this regard. All the busy-ness just repeats itself over and over, in different forms every day and nothing here ever gets done. Meanwhile there are clothes to wash, papers to throw away or file, dishes to be done, and floors to be cleaned, and none of it is getting done! And it’s not just a little messy, it is a LOT messy and although it may sound dramatic, it is really sapping my spirit of peace and joy and making everything feel like just a check mark on a long list of TO DO’s, rather than the enjoyable things they should be. I feel like I just want to burn it all down and start over! It’s depressing and I don’t know where to begin because just beginning only seems futile unless I can finish, and I have no time to finish for a couple of months when school is done. Also I really want to keep going to school, not quit because “I am too busy”. Besides school is just ONE of the things making life hectic. If it’s not that, is sure as sh%# just going to be something different, right? I was up most of the night last night studying for a test that I have this Thursday. This is the first chance I’ve had to study so I had to be up most of the night to get a lot done without distraction from the kids (and husband!) SIGH I am tired. I have to study for that test some more, and clean, and get dressed. SIGH again. I must go now….HEEEEELLLPP MEEEEEE!!!!!! I am being sucked in….