I know something you don't know...

I love lists. Didn't know it, did you? Well, I keep getting the lists from friends of 25 things, 27 things, 982 things, and so on. I always think of a zillion things as I read the lists others have created, and yet, I have not ever done my own. Here it is. Kind of. I could make a new list every day. Sometimes many new lists in one day.
My list has no number. I like to call it "My List of Just As Many Things As I Want to Write". Yep, that sounds about right.
Maybe you know some of these things. Maybe you don't know any of them. Maybe you will say you know ALL of them---Liar.
Here is what I know, and you don't:

1. I use hand cream obsessively. (Why yes, this is a profound list.)
2. I do most things obsessively.
3. I have never seen an ocean. None of them.
4. I am shorter than I used to be.
5. I am an artist.
6. I am a writer.
7. I always wished I were a singer.
8. I think too much.
9. I LOVE Chinese food.
10. I believe that God made me and loves me unconditionally.
11. I yell at my kids too much.
12. I want to learn everything there is to know about anything.
13. I am overly enthusiastic about 99% of life. The other 1% is housekeeping.
14. I love to read.
15. I am toooooo empathetic. Some people really don't need empathy.
16. I really need to have a store.
17. I keep trying to get someone to write a book for me. So far, no takers.
18. I don't get nearly enough sleep.
19. I am mostly made of caffeine, nicotine, and SUGAR.
20. I should quit smoking. But I like it.
21. I won't let my children or that Man lay on MY pillows. That is just gross.
22. I think the world is a lot easier to figure out than most people would have you believe.
23. I don't know many things that are black and white. Life is mostly gray.
24. I do believe in following the rules. I also believe most of the rules are stupid.
25. I can't drive stick-shift.
26. I am the Spackling Queen.
27. I still don't know what I am going to be when I grow up.
28. I hope I grow up.
29. I am nervous for my children every minute of every day.
30. I know that life is not fair but it doesn't stop me from wishing it were.
31. I have one foot 1/2 size bigger than the other.
32. I wake up during the night specifically to watch PBS. I am sure that is it.
33. I wish that my children didn't know most of what they know.
34. I almost never eat 'meals'. I much prefer the grazing.
35. I would like to go back to bed today.

Huh? Only 35 things. For now.

Three-Four

Yeah, yeah, I know...Remember that one time when I had a blog? So, I missed a few days, weeks, months, whatever.
Where we left off...
So, around the 31st day of August I had a birthday or two or a week of them, but who is counting? I love to have a birthday or three. This year I turned thirty-four. Sounds funny but feels about right. I always wanted to be thirty-six but thirty-four isn't half bad thus far. Getting older is wonderful. No, really. Every year I feel a little less of an idiot than I was the year before. Compared to the twenty-seven year old me, I am practically Yoda. I can't wait to be old. Ok, I can wait but I really am looking forward to it. Really.
I have been thinking since around September 1st about the good things that come from being thirty-four. Thinking of enough of them to make a list. Shocking, I know.

Things I know at thirty-four, in no particular order (other than the order in which they occur to me)---

• THIS is the day that the Lord has made. I WILL rejoice and be glad in it. Everyday.
• My eyebrows are sisters, not twins. My ears are not even related. Things that would have mortified an earlier version of me now just make me laugh, hard.
• The eighty-four year old me will know that the thirty-four year old me didn't know diddly about squat. I love that.
• Every person has good in them. Yes, I said EVERY person. I know it. Without a doubt. For sure.
• Life is really hard. Not fair. Not always pleasant. Often heart wrenching. And completely worth every bit of it.
• It is possible to look in a full-length mirror and not pick out anything to pick on. Not that I can today, but today I know it is possible.
• My children have taught me more in this short time than any people I have ever met. Or will ever meet.
• There really are things I learned in elementary school that I have NEVER used again.
• I don't like olives and won't ever like olives. This serves as my declaration to the eighty-four year old me---We DO NOT like olives.
• I know there is a man that loves me. Loves me more than he should. Loves me until he is dead. Loved me always, just took me twenty years to know it.
• I know for certain that the way I judge any other is exactly the way I will be judged. I really don't want that pressure.
• Pretty sure at thirty-four that I must have stood in God's good hair line more than once. It was worth it. Also, sure at thirty-four that I don't have to feel guilty about saying there is something completely shallow that I like about myself.
• I know that I know that I know that there is nothing under the sun that is so bad that it can't be fixed. N.o.t.h.i.n.g.
• Things that look to be impossible are not. They are just hard. NOTHING is impossible.
• God has a place for everyone. A plan for everyone. A heart for everyone. A desire for everyone. Everyone.
• Sorting laundry makes the whole lot turn out a little better. I am planning on the thirty-five year old me learning how to do it.
• I know that it is much, much, much, much better to know how to find answers than to be someone who thinks they have them all.
• Right-of-Way means exactly what it says.
• There are colors I just shouldn't wear. Unless I am alright with people asking if I don't feel well.
• Many things really are just business. Taking business personally is just silly.
• I know that people can be very cruel. I also know that not one of them can eat me. The joke is on them. :)
• At thirty-four, I know days are long and years are short. The math doesn't work out, just trust me on this.
• I want to be better tomorrow than I am today. Better yet the day after tomorrow. Way ahead of today by next week.
• I know children are entirely at the mercy of the adults around them. I know that this is both wonderful and horrible. I know this makes me sad for some children on most days and thrilled for some children everyday.
• I am able to program the blinking clock on every electronic item in my house.
• I know that I know more about how most people work than I do about how most things work.
• I know there are things that I know that I NEVER want my children to know.
• Rose-colored glasses are beyond desirable. They are, to me, a necessity.
• If I am unhappy all I have to do is change it.
• I know the phone number of every person who would help me hide a body. I also know they will never need to.
• I know what it is to love another more than I love myself. I also know it is possible to love every other more than myself. I know I have to think about it every day.
• There are still lots of things I want to be when I grow up.
• I know that someone else has an easier life than I do. I know that someone else has a more difficult life than I do. I know this is true for every individual on the planet.
• All people struggle with the same things and every person feels, at times, like they are the only one.
• I know a dozen ways to do any math problem. I can't teach you even one of them.
• At thirty-four I know better than to worry that I think a touch differently than everyone I know. By a touch I mean completely, worlds-apart, polar opposite kind of differently.
• The way I see the world is what makes up MY world. Everyone else has their own world based entirely on how THEY see the world. Really. The whole world and everything in it is based completely on perspective. Changing your perspective really does change the world.
• Never argue feelings. Everyone is entitled to feel whatever they want. I own my feelings. I can change them with a decision. So can you. I know it.
• I know I read faster than any person I know and I remember it better. Not bragging. At thirty-four it is just something I know. At seven it was something I knew but never would have dared to say. 
• Even at thirty-four, sometimes I still get too nervous to think of anything to say.
• I know that my left hand is always jealous that my right hand gets to write. My left hand wants you to know that she is entirely capable of adequate penmanship, without even a fraction of the practice.
• Respect is earned. Period.
• It is possible to have respect for the position and none for the person.
• I feel for every woman younger than I am today. Life gets easier to take. It really, really does.
• I know it really is who you know, not what you know. I also know it is wrong. Wrong and true.
• Girls see themselves the way they think others see them. It took at least thirty years to know that I am not the pretty one, the funny one, or the smart one. I am a little of each and a whole lot more. Always was.
• Education is not a synonym for knowledge. You can have a ton of one and still none of the other.
• I know being angry is not worth it.
• I am really bad at remembering names. I must get better at it. It makes people feel unimportant when you can't remember their name. I don't want to do that to anyone. I must get better at it.
• There is so much that I can't do anything about I might as well get comfortable with waiting. :)
• Being optimistic is more than a mere personality trait. It is a CHOICE.
• I know sooooooo many words. When I use a few of them over and over and over it is entirely intentional. Bugs some of you, doesn't it?
• I know that handicapped spaces are for handicapped people. I know that I will be happy to turn you in. Fair warning.
• I am more comfortable in my own skin every single day.
• It is more important, for me at least, to be happy than right. I know I am still working on this one. Daily.
• I know God gave me more than my share of patience. I wish I could always find it.
• I know for sure that I know very, very little.

I wish that the thirty-four year old me could talk any younger version of me. I would want me to know that IT WILL BE FINE. All of it. Things work out, even when they don't.
When I am discouraged I think about how life will look a few years from now. Will what is bothering me be resolved? Will it even matter if it is not? Almost nothing is as critical as it seems in the moment. Easy to say, often hard to believe.
And now...I know if you made it this far your eyes are tired. :)

The Dragonflies Didn't Want Me Dead

I can't recall ever before having a short version of a long story. You are in luck today!

Short story...I should be dead. My life was saved by dragonflies and $3 shoes. The End.


I have spent a week in self-imposed computer lockdown because I could not find time (or something) during the past two years to manage to finish 24million Continuing Education Hours (read this as TESTS) that I have to turn in the the great state of Kansas---umm, tomorrow.


I left work Friday evening determined to pick up children, shove food at them, and work until my eyes quit. Well, that didn't happen. I can't exactly recall what did happen but for sure that wasn't it.


Saturday morning I got up too early, came out of my room, and was instantly depressed by the amount of crap that I had to navigate to get to the caffeine. It was an obstacle course of everything anyone has had in hand (and just left where ever it landed) for what looked to be a year or two. Ugh.


Caffeine helped, but just barely. I went out on my front porch and, I kid you not, there were half a billion dragonflies in my front yard. They were everywhere! Woo-hoo! I actually smiled. In the A.M.! A dragonfly landing is good luck, you know this. Well, they landed on me, on everything I own, on things I wish I owned outright, everywhere. I wanted to call everyone that I knew could use some luck! I am telling you...half a billion dragonflies in my front yard. Good luck for me, coming right up!


I went back in to the scene of the crime and started a load of dishes. And laundry. And packing all of the children's worldly possessions back to their own rooms. Talked to my brother on the phone, warned him of the impending blizzard. He has 4-wheel drive or would have been concerned about the effects of my doing dishes on the course of nature.


I was on a roll. Hot damn. You should know that until a month ago I have had a housekeeper for the majority of my adult life. It was a condition of marriage. Not for me. For him. He knew I was that bad.


I can't think, any regular day of life, of anything I like to do less than clean. Dentist? Yeah, there is that. Other than that...nope, nothing, nada. Cleaning=punishment in my head. Anyway, there I was enjoying cleaning up after all the little piggies.


Then the part of my brain that remembers who I am reminded me that I was only cleaning to avoid doing the work I HAD to do. I told that part of my brain to shut up and folded 47 loads of laundry. I cleaned like a crazy woman for hours and hours. Finally, when I located the top of the stove (yes, the same one I cleaned cobwebs out of the last go-round), I noticed that there is actually some instruction about removing and cleaning the vent filter printed inside the vent. In my newly discovered OCD-induced delusional world it seemed like a good idea.


I removed the vent. Success. Removed the filter. Success. VACUUMED the crud that was left in the filter's spot after not moving for roughly five years. Yes! Again, success. I am a cleaning machine.


Friends, Acquaintances, Random Internet Yay-hoos, pride will get you every time.


The opening for the vent leads to another opening for some fancy stove related something-or-other on top of which are the knobs. The knobs that bring hot. I could see ancient spaghetti in that little space with the wires. June Cleaver would not have let that be.


I don't know if it was my cleaning-high-Martha-Stewart-sized ego that led me to believe I was an electrician or my actual complete idiocy about all things requiring electrical current to function that led me to think I could reach in that tiny space where 487 wires live. It got a little fuzzy in my head...


I touched a wire. A HOT ONE. Hot should not be the adjective used to describe live electric wires. They are not hot. Hot is in no way adequate to describe what comes out of there. There is no word for what the wire brings.


That tiny wire started in my finger, raced to the tip top of my giant head, through every stupid filling in my stupid teeth both coming and going, down through every cell in my body (Turns out there are waaaayyyyy more of those than I thought. I felt each one. Individually.), and down to the soles of my feet. I thought I was dead. Content that my body would be found in the midst of so much cleanliness, but still dead. I looked down at my fiery feet and laughed. Laughed hard. Laughed hard and outloud. Obnoxiously loud.


I don't have a real cleaning uniform for the one time a year it is more fun than whatever else I need to do. Yesterday, for instance, I wore $3 RUBBER flip-flops. Yep, that buzzing stopped right at the soles of my feet.


My experience with electrical burns is even more limited than my experience with loading the dishwasher. The rest of my body quit buzzing after a few minutes. The finger that touched the wire didn't quit buzzing for hours and hours. Weirdest feeling that turned into a nasty burn.


So...the dragonflies clearly brought me the best of luck, in spite of myself. And $3 is exactly the right amount to pay for a pair of life-saving shoes.


The whole almost dead experience got even funnier to me today. My best friend Marcie had been sending me messages all weekend because she has had my birthday gift for weeks and we will both be working on my birthday. I saw her this afternoon.

This is the sign Marcie gave me for my birthday. The day after cleaning nearly killed me. She also calls me on the days my child is admitted to the hospital before she knows that he was. She is good like that.

Oh fine, at 4:30 this morning I told the children I was no longer speaking to them, started testing, finished at noon. No worries. My license doesn't expire until Tuesday! ;)

Oh, Wednesday.

Dear EveryonewhounderstandsthetruenatureofWednesday,
So, it is Wednesday again. That is all.
This is the Wednesday that the Children-'o-Mine went back to school. School, again. On a Wednesday even. The world may be asking a little too much of me today!
So, I spoke to the children (by phone) at about 4:00pm. The Unnamed Child had an AWESOME day! Then, he proceeded to tell me everything he ate at school. I do think he had a good day. I believe the snacks might have been what made it awesome. Oh well, whatever works! :)
The Girl refused to speak to me. Yes, really. When I went to school to give the Unnamed his afternoon medicine the School Nurse asked me (in front of the Unnamed) if the Girl would have an EpiPen. I said yes. Unnamed asked me what it was. I explained. Apparently, I didn't explain well.
The Unnamed told the Girl that the Nurse and I were making plans for her to go back to taking allergy shots. She refused to speak to me all evening.
When pressured (by me, of course) to tell everything about her first day of second grade she finally shouted, "My teacher is really skinny! There! Is that what you wanted?".
Well, no.
So here is hoping that tomorrow is AWESOME for both of the children!
Is it May yet?
D.

Weekends are Too Short

See that picture? It was a weekend. Remember those?


I think I will start a Revolution. If we all band together I think we could fix this calendar problem. Workers have been suffering for generations from some poor planning on the part of Pope Gregory XIII. Nope, this isn't about him. I am certain he had the best of intentions and was an all-around super swell guy.

This is about the weekend being TWO DAYS long and the other FIVE DAYS sucking eggs for the most part. A Revolution is clearly needed. If we put our minds to it we could get all of the business done that we need to do in two days and celebrate our efficiency for the next five days.

A five day weekend? Good gravy, that's brilliant.


Oh yes, there was a reason for this revelation leading to a Revolution. I had a great weekend. All two days of it. It could have easily lasted five days and I would still have been sorry to see it go.

So, we went to a super fun place I like to call Chuck E. Cheese. Well actually, that is what Chuck likes to call it and I just follow his lead. The first picture is the children humoring their mother by allowing photos. No, of course they don't actually sit down and eat at Chuck E.'s. That was the humoring part.

The second photo is MY NEW FAVORITE PLACE. I love it. The Big Texan at Amarillo, Texas. It is amazing. And kitschy. And crowded. And corny. And every good thing that every good tourist trap ought to be. I love it. Did I say that?

<------See, I did love it! That is happy. Ignore the pouting beside me. I do. :) Oh, it was hot. And noisy. And fun.

And someday, we will go without children and our expressions will be reversed!


By the way, I didn't say I would be out of town. I didn't know I would be out of the town. I will be again in about three years. Mark my words. Every three years.

Some 'Splainin to Do

Yes, I really do write every day. Yes, even the days you don't see any words posted here. Or anywhere else. Sometimes the words just don't seem right. Sometimes the words are a little too harsh (grumpy!) even for me. Sometimes I just don't want to share!

Anyway, back on schedule. Words, words, words. More words to come.

Friday the 13th

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed...Or maybe it was that I didn't get out of the bed when I should have. Either way, it was one of those mornings full of impatience for some children who deserve an extremely patient mother. I have been trying to find them one for years.



After yelling at anyone and anything to cross my path, I decided it would be best to double the caffeine, don my favorite panties, and throw on the butterfly shoes for good measure.

I had a hard time deciding which of these things to show photographic evidence of, finally realizing that you had all seen coffee and I could photograph my shoes sitting here. It would have been awkward to explain the amount of time I was in the ladies trying to picture the panties.
At least it would have been awkward for whomever I needed to provide an explanation.

I made it mostly unscathed through the AM hours of working. At lunch, with three children in the vehicle (my two and a spare), we noticed an adult male riding a bicycle down Main Street. A busy small town main street during the noon hour. He was riding against traffic, weaving around parked cars, etc.. The Unnamed child exclaimed, "Who is that idiot?". I did correct him about saying this, even though those exact words had run through my mind as he said them. As we continued to approach the dare-devil cyclist we had a very appropriate conversation about following the rules of the road, even on a bicycle. Maybe especially on a bicycle.

Upon finally reaching the "idiot", riding in every way people with badges explain to small kids they shouldn't, the yelling began.

"THAT'S MR. ________!!"

"OH MY GOSH!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT'S MR. ________?"

And so on...for the next three blocks, at least.

Rather than name him, let's just say it was an authority figure from a place where the children spend roughly 180 days per year.

Oh, how things always come back to bite me in the a$$. Yep, this one is going to. At some point, one of the darling children is absolutely going to mention to Mr. ______ that they saw him riding his bicycle and their mother pointed out all of the things he was doing that they should never, ever do. Awesome.

Even the butterfly shoes aren't making me feel better about that one.

Crazy, busy afternoon--I am not unusually superstitious, but maybe it was Friday, the 13th.

Maybe it was just another Friday being me.

UPDATE: Yes, I really did write this on the 13th. That day, I could not publish or edit it. I believe it was an indication of the nature of Friday the 13th. It just got more 13th-ish from there.