I could...

I could post lots of posts about how hard this time is, but I don't.  I am not sure I want to remember what an awful mess I am right now.  It just hits me and I want to crawl in a hole. I miss my Mom.

A green miracle...

Last night, twoK was eating her peas VERY SLOWLY--no surprise there. I think it was going on 40 minutes and she still had 1/2 the bowl to eat. I was getting frustrated and I asked her what I could do to get her to eat them more quickly. She said, wait for it, make me a smoothie with peas, strawberries, soy milk, and banana.

I almost fell over. I wonder if she's been reading this blog. I told her we'd do it tomorrow, and I said, if I made her a pea smoothie, that she'd have to drink it all.  She promised she would.

Tonight, at her request, and with her watching, I made a pea, strawberry, soy milk, and banana smoothie.  She drank 2 glasses full. She said she liked it. I put in way more peas than I usually do. You could see the green-ish color and taste them.  She didn't flinch. I was so proud.

Remember this? Tonight, I told twoK that she'd probably like spinach in her smoothies even better than peas.  She said she'd try it tomorrow. I told her that spinach tastes even less than peas do. It's true. She's been drinking them both for years, but she doesn't know it. I'm thrilled that she's at an age where she'll drink them with awareness. My little anti-vegetable girl is growing up and starting to like them.

Cold #2 of the season

twoK caught it.  It seems milder, but a lot like the one I had.  However, it seems like she should have gotten it sooner if she caught it from me.

Good for a girl and a boy

I file this under another way to make money that is really not necessary, but pretty cute and clever.  We saw these at Whole Foods the other night.  The blue one says, "Frightens monsters from your closet!" The pink one says, "Frightens monsters from under your bed!"  

my new plan

We'll see if it happens.  Right now, my head hurts.  I mentioned I haven't had an aura/migraine, but my head has just kind of hurt for the last few weeks.  When someone I love dies, my head hurts.  It sucks, but at least I know the cause.

On Tuesdays, I spend from 2:30 - 7-ish with the girls.  While I treasure my time with them, they are noisy and that's not so good for a fragile head (TM).  After dinner, that's now, I told MWH I needed a little quiet.  I'm sneaking in a quick blog post.

I am feeling so overwhelmed.  MWH has been wanting me to work less for a while, so that our lives could be a little more sane, but I haven't ever wanted to work less.  This last month has changed that.  My plan is to do everything I need to do for work through mid-January and then take a little break.  I'm not sure if I can do it all, but somehow it will all get done.

In January, I'll do the "go hourly" thing.  We're working on a fun project right now, and I want to keep working on it, but it'll end mid-March.  If we write a new proposal, I'll totally do that, but I'm actually good with a little down time.  There's one other project that I want to work on, but I don't know what the timing is for it, and there won't be a ton of work, but who knows, it might keep me busy through spring.  I just don't know the timing of it.

There's another project that has me down for quite a bit of time in January and I want to get out of it.  I saw a potential escape route today. I'll keep you posted. I totally need some downtime. Totally. Okay, me and my fragile head (TM) are going to make sure the girls are in bed by 9.

Yay! Zumba for me! Today!

In an hour and 1/2, but who is counting?  I love Zumba.  It's my sanity-keeper.  I love to dance.  I'm not very good, and I've been dancing my whole life, so I should be better, but who cares!  Dance like no one is watching--that's my motto.

I am so thankful that I have a love of dance.  I never feel like it's a "have to" work out, it's an I-WANT-to-work-out-thing when  I'm heading for a dance class.  I do feel like it's an "I have to thing" when I lift weights/do Pilates/do Dailey Method.  However, when I think about how strength building helps me be a better dancer, then it's easier to find the motivation.

Yea, I'm avoiding writing about anything but light and fluffy stuff right now.  Here are some random tidbits for now.

Our wood floor is still "acclimating" and being installed.  We are waiting to start on the stairs until some more "parts" come in.  I'm hoping the parts will be here at the end of the week.

I need to write about elderberry.  There's a link if you're curious.

I'm amazed that I haven't had a migraine aura from the grief.  I realize it hasn't been that long, and that I could be jinxing myself by typing these words, but as I said I'm working really hard to stay away from my triggers. We'll see if I can make it through an upcoming trip (in November for OLU) without getting a migraine aura.

What else...  I need to do an update on what the girls are like this year.  That's one of the main purposes of this blog and I'm failing miserably in doing that.   More soon... it's the best I can do right now.

No Zumba for me, today

You know it's bad if I skip Zumba.  Zumba is what keeps me sane.  However, I walked out to the mailbox to mail the check for the payment of my Mom's funeral, yea, very cheery around here, and the walk to the mailbox and back left me breathless and exhausted.

Plus, now I have this tickle in my throat that makes me cough and when I cough I get a stabbing pain in my throat.

Good times.

I'm sitting here, on my bed, with my very sexy black, almost 20 year old sweats that fall down because they are coming apart at the seam in the back.  I'm a sniffling, sneezing, coughing mess.  I bet you want to come over, eh?

But, as Three-a says, it's noro!  Life is good.

Yup

I am sick.  I tried to fight it and not give in, but last night, I might have even been running a fever.  As Three-a reminded me, a cold is MUCH better than norovirus.  My little optimist.  I thanked her for reminding me and told her I loved my cold.  It's true.  Okay, moving on.

Today is our anniversary!  Happy Anniversary MWH.  I love you in sickness and in health.  I'm sorry I am the sick-y today.  We'll take a day to play and hang out in a week or so.  I love you in crazy, insane times, too.

Thank you for taking me to a Vegan restaurant on Saturday night.  It was super fun to go, open the menu and to know that I would happily eat ANY of the entrees on there.  Super fun.  You win the best husband ever award!



P.S.  Hey, P.S., we were thinking we should go there with you and L!

gosh durn it

I don't usually use such language here on this blog, but I have a cold.  I'm trying to take Zicam and make it go away, but it seems to be gaining a little.  Note to self, do NOT stop taking Zicam as it will get worse.  Zicam is helping. Or at least, I don't want to find out that it was helping but then I stopped taking it and got worse like I did one time.


I don't feel *that* bad, but I am feeling worse than I was yesterday.  I'm tired and my nose feels like it wants to be stuffy--it is a tiny bit.  My lymph nodes feel all swollen.  I'm sneezing quite a bit.  My ears are a bit stuffy.   I have a bit of a headache.  Yea, sounds like a cold to me.  I hope I can shake it, soon.

It's almost our anniversary, so it's not surprising I'm getting sick.  I HATE BEING SICK ON OUR ANNIVERSARY.  I love our anniversary.  I love MWH.  I loved our wedding.  Given how much stress has been loaded on me in the last few weeks, I'm not surprised.  Just another thing to be sad about, eh?

Deeply Unhappy

No, not me. I'm very sad, but not deeply unhappy.  There is a difference between being sad and unhappy. I reserve deeply unhappy term for the woman at the drugstore who yelled at the clerk at the check-out stand.  I'm not sure what he did, but he's been working at the drugstore forever, and he's a super gentle personality.  I can't believe he did anything to deserve the violent wrath she spewed his way.  One older woman said, she must have had a big fight with her husband this morning and then took it out on the clerk.  I agreed.

On another note, I am very sad.  I got a very (bitter)sweet email from my friend telling me she got sad being at Grandparent's day at her school.  She was sad for me and the girls--xoxo to her.  I am very sad when I think about the girls not having my Mom to love them.  She LOVED her grandchildren.  My niece, who is an adult, cried a lot when she thought about my girls not having her in their lives at least until they were older.  Okay, can't think much more about this.  I'm getting a headache.  Seriously, my head starts to hurt when I think about her loss.  I hope I'm not a bad person for delaying the processing of her loss.  It really hurts too much right now.

Continuing with the sadness theme, I am very sad about the loss of Steve Jobs.  I was in the same location with him a couple of times, but I don't think I ever spoke with him, not even a "hello."  Like most of the people on the planet, he transformed and made my life better.  I would have liked to have told him thank you, but when I saw him was in his intense days.  He became a gentle, inspiring soul after his illness.  In his earlier days, he demanded more than most people could imagine and he challenged people beyond their limits.  It worked.  He left a dent in the universe.  I'll be forever grateful for his existence.

Okay, that's all I have.  I'm so drained.

He's that good

and he's all mine!

All weekend, I kept looking at the laundry baskets in my closet and thinking about how I really should do some laundry.  I was overwhelmed by them.  I never got around to doing laundry, so tonight, I came home from work and started to put in a load.  I pulled out enough dirty clothes for a load and then looked at the laundry baskets and thought, hrmph, there wasn't that much laundry there.  I must be overwhelmed even more than I thought from my Mom's death.

I carried the laundry to the washing machine and then saw that MWH had put in a load to wash already.  He is truly My Wonderful Husband!  Thank you MWH!  I've been so overwhelmed lately and he's doing so many things to help.  I am lucky.