post randomly

Very excited about this trip. We’re leaving in the morning.

Hope everyone in 43T World has a good week. :)

Since I felt like a jerk for road raging today, and I couldn’t have a do-over, I decided to adjust my karmic balance by filling out my latest form from UNICEF.

Now, I’m not posting about it to boast, because I still think it’s important to be a nice person all the time. I just think UNICEF is a really good fund. Just a little bit of money goes a very long way in a third world country, and can save lives. So, if you are ever wondering what a good fund to give to is, that’s one.

Anyway, I still don’t feel like deeds make up for bad behavior, but I wanted to do something.

They sent me a mother’s day packet. I paid for polio vaccines. I thought that would honor her, since polio drastically changed and shortened her life. So, in her honor, saving children from the same fate seemed appropriate.

Mother’s day will be on my birthday, by the way. We’ll be taking my MIL out for dinner. She’s the best. She and I can celebrate our day of recognition together. :)

Today is my two year driving anniversary. This will always feel like a big deal to me, as it took many months of therapy to overcome a debilitating fear of driving, stemming from my childhood. I’m going to get mushy here – I am living proof that seemingly insurmountable fears can be overcome. Your positive thought for the day.

I haven’t volunteered in three weeks.

The first week I don’t remember what happened. I just couldn’t make it for some reason. The second week, I was out of town. Last week, I was at the doctor. Now, I could go today in half an hour, but I feel sick to my stomach, and am really tired.

I had called to tell them I wouldn’t be in before, and they acted like I was weird for calling, since I don’t work there. But I feel rude just not showing up for a month. And I know next week will be their meeting day, so I won’t show up then.

I feel awkward showing up out of the blue after a month of being away. I’m not really liking the experience there, because there’s not a lot for me to do. I know the important thing is being there for the residents, but I would rather be doing something where I’m cleaning, or putting something away or some other busy kind of thing.

I feel selfish, because just because this isn’t what I prefer doing, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t doing any good. So, if I leave, I feel like a selfish person. And if I don’t go today, and then just show up later, I feel weird.

It’s 1:30 in the afternoon. I usually go in at 2. I’m exhausted, and I haven’t even taken a shower. I could pop some pills for my stomach and just show up, but I don’t want to. I feel bad that I don’t want to. I’m not sure what to do.

I have some friends who have invited me to their weekly get-togethers. They like this wings place, but I can’t go there. So, the first few times, we went to a different place, or ate in with food I could have. At some point, we were talking about watching this series that we all really love, so I was looking forward to that.

But today, they made plans to go out to the wings place before getting together to watch this series. They already know I can’t eat there. Are they just subtly trying to get rid of me? Did they forget about all the other times I said, “I can’t go to that place”? Am I being paranoid?

I decided to just make plans to stay in and study anyway, because it is finals week, but I wasn’t sure how to take it.

She would be 68.

I ate a brownie in her memory.

If she were alive today she might say, “Hey, thanks for going to all that trouble to eat a brownie for me. Where’s mine?”

And then I’d say, “Sorry, Mama. I just had the one.”

:P

When I was a kid, my sister and I would play in the yard at my grandma’s house, and the bushes were covered in honeysuckles, yellow and white. We would pinch off the ends, and drink the nectar. It was just a drop, but it was oh so sweet.

We don’t have any honeysuckles around here. When I go out the back door at night, sometimes I could swear I smell them. Maybe the wind has carried the scent from a neighboring suburb, but I don’t see them.

I also miss squirrels.

A Good Thing:

I have had a lot of work to do in my computer class lately. I thought I was doing well, and realized I had missed a whole page of assignments. I had a bunch of quizzes to do. I managed to get everything done on time, plus I did really well on the three quizzes I took. I still have a quiz and some more work to do, but I’m caught up, and I feel really good about my grades.

An Annoying Thing:

I don’t know why, but it seems like a certain group of friends I hang out with will say something negitive about my husband at least once per visit with them. It’s always something small like, “Oh, he’s so OCD”, “He’s bossy, and hard to get along with,” or, “He likes to show off how much money he has.”

It seems like they’re kind of joking and kind of not, and it seems like they expect me to join in a bit and say, “Oh yeah, just listen to what he does at home,” but I don’t, because I don’t find him to be that way. I mean, he does have a touch of OCD and can seem a little controlling because of it, but he’s not that overbearing. And he doesn’t “like to show off how much money he has”. Not by a long shot. He just enjoys buying people dinner, or giving gifts to others. That’s how he shows he cares. What is there to complain about?

So anyway… I guess this negativity slips by me while I’m with my friends, but then when I think about it later, I get angry. I always find myself defending my husband over things I don’t think are true, and it stresses me out. So, what little time I actually spend socializing ends up being stressful instead of refreshing. I find myself avoiding the socializing that I had waited along time to be able to do.

A Third Thing:

I feel like I really need a third thing, but I don’t have one. You know, third time’s a charm and all. Then again, three’s a crowd.

So, apparently, my step-mom randomly went off on a tangent at my sister, about how our mom was a terrible wife to our dad, and a terrible person, citing examples, and pretty much trying to make my sister feel bad about it. My sister was pretty upset about it, although she tries to hide being upset around me.

Our mom was a crazy nutcase, and a pain in the ass sometimes (who isn’t?), but she wasn’t a bad person, and she certainly doesn’t deserve to have her memory defamed. I doubt my certifiably psychotic dad was really a fantastic husband to her either. Not as if I didn’t witness him abusing her when I was a kid.

And my sister sure doesn’t need this kind of crap – listening to someone trash her dead mom, who she was really close to. That’s the thing that gets me. Her trashing my mom: totally expected. Her trashing my mom to my sister: unacceptable, and completely inappropriate! You’d think she’d know better, being a professed Christian, and a school teacher, but apparently not.

But, I’m not fuming like I feel like I should be. I’m just finished with her, and sorry that happened to my sister. I know my step-mom was really badly abused all her life, and my dad is, surprisingly enough, probably the least crazy thing that’s ever happened to her. So, whatever. She can make herself feel good feeling like she’s “the better wife.” It’s almost a relief, because now I don’t have to feel bad that I don’t like her.

Mostly, I’m just sad my sister got her feelings hurt. If our mom was alive, I know that’s the part that she would be sad about too.

Hope this doesn’t come across as too dramatic. I just needed to vent somewhere.

Today I felt incredibly tired at school. Seriously need to get my thyroid checked. (I have put in a request for an appointment.)

Didn’t get a full night’s rest. Got to school, too tired to pay attention. My second class was gone. They weren’t in the room. They weren’t where the note on the door said they should be. Running around was wearing me down, so I sat in the cafeteria and ate a snack, and listened to jazz. It’s Art Week, and a jazz band was playing the in cafeteria.

English class, we listened to a reading from a sad chapter of a sad book. Being tired makes me emotional. I had to leave before the reading was over, and step into the restroom, and cry, because someone in a story had died, and it was depressing. When I returned, class was over. We’d been let out early.

It rained on the way home. Hard. I don’t mind the rain, because everyone slows down – too slow for even a rainy day. It doesn’t bother me.

I keep seeing yellow butterflies. Not today, but lately. Or, maybe I keep seeing the same yellow butterfly. I thought it was a swallowtail, because of the markings, but it doesn’t have tails. I looked up Georgia butterflies, but I can’t find my butterfly. All the yellow ones I’ve found are too fuzzy, or too small, or don’t have the right markings.

I still need to find my butterfly.
I think it was a yellow swallowtail after all. They aren’t very tail-y, looking at some of the pictures.