It is September which means it was time for our annual beach trip. We go to our favorite condo and this year had some good friends and their two children stay with us. It was a great trip and every year we so look forward to it. We are thinking we may add a day next year, but for the most part we love our format. Get to the condo and then it is pretty much some arrangement of beach, condo and pool for the entire weekend!

Favorite parts:
– I love the condo so much and its close proximity to the beach.
– The kids all got along famously which was great.
– Tyler now old enough so that he and Daddy hung out on the far out sandbar hunting for hermit crabs.
– Watching the sandpipers run along the beach.
– Quinn building sand castles and dutifully fetching water from the ocean.
– Sitting on the balcony drinking coffee and taking in the sunrise.
– Erin’s amazing dinner featuring fresh caught Mahi Mahi.
– Shell hunting
– Playing underwater in the swimming pool with Tyler.
– Our traditional departure lunch at Fins.
– Coffee shops in small towns.
– Knitting and more knitting so much so that my hands hurt!

The could live without parts:
– They had just gotten tons of rain so the mosquitoes were insane. On one of our evening beach walks we literally ran for the condo after sunset because they came out swarming.
– The jellyfish. Tyler got stung by one on the beach – they were in the water, on the beach – I never remember so many being everywhere.
– Being so tired -wish I had more energy that weekend.

Clogged drain? Started with a little vinegar, but ran out. So switched to washing soda with boiling water. What clogged drain?? Damn I rule!

How is it even possible to have any kind of sanity when your house looks like this? And mine was like this for over a week. It is a combination of stuff moved out of two rooms and kids trying to play amongst all these out of place items. I must say my most favorite, “let’s play with what is out” moment was when Tyler turned the drying rack for the dishes into a printer and the table mat was what it was printing out.

Still, this was crazy. Our rhythms have completely fallen apart and I miss them so. And man, I am tired. It is like I get stuck in a tired place and have the hardest time getting myself out. It is very difficult for me to stop – it is a strength and weakness all in one. However, I have hope that fall, the very best time of year for me, will help right this ship.

Oh, in case you didn’t know – we were having the kitchen textured and painted. Wallpaper, don’t let the door hit you on the way out…buh-bye! Oh, and enter grateful hubby who has lived in a house for almost two years with wallpaper half torn off walls on a job someone (er, me) started and then lost all motivation to complete. Even though I have painted every wall in this house, this job was just too big for me, so we hired a painter. Little did he know what he was walking into.

Let me start by asking you, is it a bad thing when your painter tells you “it has been an experience” as he is collecting his payment? I thought so. So yes, I changed my mind on the color of the kitchen not once, but twice. I am not good at this stuff and there were three other colors it had to work with. The grey blue was too cold and well, awful. The yellow MIL picked out was closer, but too bright. And leave it to my hubby to pluck a candle off of our mantle and say this one. And he was right – a deep, earthy gold. The second I put it on the walls, my gut knew – we found the color.

I am now wanting to make curtains and will start saving my pennies for the bench seat and table that I want to eventually put in there. All in time. You should see what the kids have done to my college dinging table – really, I shouldn’t be in a rush to upgrade.. :-p

I still have some work to do in the entryway and the bay window and I am hopeful that by the end of the weekend, I will have those done. And I need to move on because I am tired. God, I am so completely tired. I see it in my parenting. {icky, icky feelings here} But, fall is on the way, soups, pumpkin pie, apple sauce, warm tea, cider, hikes, pumpkin patches, gnomes – there is just too much goodness to be down. I just want to get to a place where my biggest stressor will be making enough gnomes for the nature table.

And with that, I will drink some more wine, knit and literally fall into bed…. Oh, and before I sign off, here is my painted kitchen..

Today I went to visit my Dad at his Alzheimer Care Center while my Mom watched the kids. If I didn’t have kids, I think it would be very awkward to do this because there is no real adult way to relate to him. He is mute – he cannot understand speech and can rarely make out words himself. It is like he is speaking Spanish and I am speaking Greek. The upside is that he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s exactly and so he should always know who we are. Right now he totally knows all of us.

But I have kids and so it is easier because dementia patients like to do the same things: puzzles, blocks, legos, playdough, filling birdfeeders, art projects, stringing beads, etc. It is nice to have a way to interact with my Dad and therefore have some semblance of a relationship. And my kids love doing these things side by side with him. They get him. When we took him out to eat the other day, Tyler grabbed his hand and helped lead him to the car. They are so loving with him.

Today we walk outside to fill the bird feeder. My Mom does this with him regularly. He seems to know the drill and I am impressed that he is able to correct the lean of the feeder as I start to fill it. He proudly puts the lid back on and hands it back to me ready to be hung.

We continue outside to the little patio and garden path. He manages to mumble out “how are you?”. I tell him things are so heavy right now, how much I hurt and I start to tear up. He doesn’t understand anything I say because he can’t. So I point up at the sky and mention how beautiful it is. He points towards the sky too and says words I can’t understand. And so we walk around the little loop in the fenced area about four times.

We sit down together and do a small 24-piece puzzle. I am amazed at all the ways he tried to fit pieces together convinced that was the way they went. He will even lift the puzzle and try to slide a piece under it to make it “fit” in his mind. We finally finish it and share a high-five.

I get out playdough and he recognizes the bag and seems perplexed by it. He doesn’t know what it is or what to do with it anymore. I open the bag and hand him a small ball and then have the best laugh of my day. I look down to get my playdough out and when I look back up, Dad has taken a bite out of his like it is a snack. “Dad, don’t eat it!” I say. At that moment he gets the taste and says, “goddammit!” in this funny, surprised way and spits it out. I start laughing and am thankful for the bottle of water Mom gave me and give it to him so he can wash it out of his mouth.

We head back inside and I get the blocks out. I marvel at what this brain builds – this brain that is slowly becoming mush. The brain that says you rub deodorant on your cheeks and gargle cologne. He builds these cool asymmetrical structures and then with great determination tries to add just one more block on this tall tower. He spends a good one minute trying to get it stable and then lets it tumble down.

He wants me to watch a Red Skeleton DVD, but I can’t get the darn DVD player to work with the TV so I tell him Mom will watch it with him next time. I don’t know if he really understood. He thinks it is time for me to go. It isn’t quite dinnertime yet, but I decide to let him drive. I give him a big hug and he returns the best hug ever lifting me right off the ground.

It is a strange thing, this disease. I pray that I am never afflicted with it. But at least for now, I know how to work with it and it makes the experience a lot more pleasant for me and for my Dad. I live for those hugs though, the right off the ground ones – because that part is still my Dad. The rest not so much.

It is Sunday night, the kids are asleep and hubby is of course working. I am emotionally exhausted. I shouldn’t be – weekends are for recuperating. But the universe decided that I just hadn’t had enough and pulls the rug from under me and decides that while I am trying to help someone else sort out their mental demons, that I should face a few myself…thanks, universe.

I am so damn tired. I have been a crappy parent this past week….and while I KNOW why the day is crumbling, I am too tired to turn the ship. Quinn has allergies, so chances of sleep tonight aren’t looking hopeful. Did I mention I am cranky? *sigh*

But I know I am not alone. News from around the woods isn’t very rosy and life seems to be dragging everyone down right now and in many cases, piling it on. So I should focus on some positive things because, we have to find hope and beauty to dig us out whenever we can. Like in my backyard, where the plants were blooming with joy over the moisture.

Or returning to my favorite zen spot which we have been away from for far too long. It is where I go when I am down and need to find peace and be invigorated. And so with a break in the rain today, we headed to Turkey Creek. The kids played giddily for an hour and were soaking wet. It was great. It was nice to be somewhere where the energy was good, kids were uber content and I could just be. I got behind my dinky camera and observed every moment I could.

And so rather than rant or pontificate on the road that lies ahead, I wanted to share some of the goodness we found today.

Tears, they don’t come easily to me when I need them. I need a catalyst as silly as it sounds. A song on the radio…something like that. I believe strongly in the universe and tonight it did something weird and created an awkward moment for me.

There was nothing wrong with it, but it struck a cord with me. I kept wondering why would the universe want me to encounter that moment.

Oddly enough, the answer came to me later. I would get in the car, hear a song and cry. I would cry the tears that have been hiding behind the stalwart wife and Mom. I would release all that I had been holding. I needed a strong catalyst and the universe gave me that. I was starting to get angry and tired at the end of the day, and I just needed to let my emotions out. And so tonight I will create some rain of my own, I will go to bed and tomorrow I will wake up feeling much better.

The universe knows what it is doing and thankfully, I can see past the surface of the moment to see that there was a purpose and it gave me something I really needed. Oddly enough, my horoscope said this about today:

Your social life should get a lovely boost from September 11 onward once Pluto turns direct orbit. Your friends will be more helpful to you in a very outward, warm, and comforting way. You’ve not had this kind of support in months, but it was not your friends’ fault – it was just the way things were, and certainly they never stopped loving you. Your friends may have been preoccupied before this, but now they’ll have more time for you.

It was in a strange way, but they were there……

It seems fitting that such a somber day would be a gray one. And timely since we haven’t seen one gray day in the last three months. I almost don’t know what to do, I am so used to sun and heat.

And so much for the fall spruce up. The rain surprised me and with so many days of rain, I can’t use my clothesline and my dryer has not been fixed. The laundry piles are mountainous. Dishes are camping out in the sink. The whole house seems a mess. I simply sigh because it is all an exercise in patience. It is all weather – it will pass. The house will find itself put back together eventually…

I am strangely optimistic and at peace today. I feel totally centered – maybe from the yoga this morning. For all the turbulence in the lives around me, I am not worried. It is as if I know that it will all work out – it is just a matter of time.