I am sitting here still very tired and emotionally drained, but the desperation is gone. Life has slowed down for the moment giving me an opportunity to ask myself what the hell happened this week? Why was it all too much? I can see how the reality of it all is hard, but it isn’t all going to happeverwhelemedn overnight. What happened?

Two weeks ago I renewed my vows with Chris and after the party I was pooped and emotionally drained. I was hoping for a quiet couple of weeks to recharge, but that is not what I got.

What I got was lots of news. And my mind started whirring over the list: both our Dads are in the severe stages of their illnesses and are dying, we are concerned for our mothers, my grandparents are near the end themselves, we have two young children (need I say more there..), my husband is crazy stressed and dealing with the hardest challenges he has faced in his career, a peeing cat, $10K in plumbing, projects undone and I just sit in the middle of it all dizzy.

My mind begins intensely processing all these things. There are so many balls in the air. I go to caregiver mode – I have to take care of it, deal with it, fix it, do something. And very quickly everything seems out of control and overwhelming – especially when I didn’t have much capacity to begin with. It was too much at once. I feel like I am failing and falling.

I react by making changes at home and am harder of the kids. And when I am not being hard on them, I check out. Their response of course is to act up and out. At some point this week I was wishing we had chosen potted plants over kids and I was dreaming of my own quiet space.

Enter the cat who started peeing all over the house a few months ago due to her own stress. She has done this before, but not all over the house. Chris didn’t want to deal with this problem that was hard to solve and so it was up to me. I tried to add a litter box and more convenient food/water a few weeks ago, but it seems to be a habit now. Anyway, when I found some pee in the kids room this week, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was done and she had to go – I needed control somewhere. Something had to give. The cat saga is still in “to be continued” mode, but at least it gave me the opportunity to cry my eyes out for a few days which I needed so badly.

Things will calm down and I will figure it all out, but all this shit hitting me at once is just too much. I want to take it all on and I can’t.

Today we had lunch with Pop at the monthly potluck at his Alzheimer center. We sat with a woman my Mom’s age who was visiting her parents both 86. I was telling her all that was going on and she said, “you are so young to be dealing with all this.” I liked hearing that. Just someone else saying wow, that is a lot of shit at 35. At that moment, I didn’t mind the pity. Of course, I can’t stay in that place – we all have to deal with our shit no matter our age.

Another neighbor today was talking about all she is dealing with and was telling me about the problems faced by a foster child she is working with. She was saying, then you hear about that and think, well, maybe my problems aren’t that bad.

I believe strongly that it is important to keep perspective and to not lose sight of our blessings. At the same time, rating the shit in our lives isn’t always helpful. We all feel it no matter what it is. It is heavy, it is sad, it is painful. And at some moments, like this week for me, life seems frickin’ overwhelming and just too much to deal with.

It doesn’t necessarily get easier from here, but at least the urgency to have answers, to fix it all is receding. There is space, a bit of time, and it doesn’t have to all sit on my shoulders.

Thank you to all those that rode the train with me this week. I really appreciate your love and support.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program which right now is Shaun of the Dead. And there was SOOO much crazy foreshadowing in the lines that I had not picked up on before. Nothing says stress relief like zombies and beer!

My Mom came over to our house the Friday before our big renewal party. I forget how things started but Quinn decided Grandma needed to put her bedspread over here and next thin you know a pillow fight broke out. Later, I was instructed to hide with Grandma. Quinn would check on us and be our lookout to tell us Tyler was about to get us with a pillow.
Later, when everyone was finally pooped, the kids snuggled with Grandma as she read them some books. They love it when Grandma comes to play – she ususally means to only stay an hour, but ends up hanging out for the afternoon!

I almost gave up on this year. The past years had been okay, but just not a scale that it was worth fighting the crowds. But I went into it this year with low expectations and they were far exceeded. My favorite band, Miike Snow, was on Friday, so by the end of that day, I was already happy. Saturday blew me away. By Sunday, I was just holding out for the National.

What also made this year fun was that I videoed a bit from each band. It was a fun way to share my experience with some friends and to capture my favorite moments. You can click here to check out my vids.

My favorite bands this year you ask? LCD Soundsytem, Matt and Kim, The National, Two Door Cinema Club, Miike Snow and Vampire Weekend. The bit of Spoon I caught and Black Keys were pretty good too.

For me it is all about the live show. The good shows make you forget about the heat or how tired you are. This was one of the best years in a long, long time. I think part of it had to do with ditching the chairs all together. We stuck to our guns and our schedule. On Saturday we saw 8 bands!

We are some of the lucky few who already score tickets for next year. I can’t wait!

Just had to post these fun pics. A cool lego creation by Tyler, “this is kind of like a R2-D2 robot. Quinn came downstairs dressed like this – I forget now what she was dressed up as. She is so creative and so funny.

Really, there aren’t many of these and I love them. No where to be, no rush and so we just chill. I sit in the garage with my London Fog tea, laptop and a project which today was putting together an album of Quinn’s art from when she started making any through age 4. I love sitting down and not running around and I know the kids love it too.

Today, the kids worked for a few house building houses for bugs. This was a few weeks ago and was very much a calm before the storm. It was such a nice morning.

Oh Jesus. I am laughing this morning because this is just so life!! We paused for a few weeks to have fun – 3 days at ACL Fest and then the next weekend we threw a party and renewed our vows with family and friends.

It was a perfect night. Also it was very tiring. So we limped into the week and here I am Tuesday…and we are so back to life. Some of the crap that I had been ignoring while I was getting ready for the fun stuff has decided to rear its head today.

1. The cat is peeing all over the house now. Our cats are scared of the kids, well all people really. I think she is mad now that we are home even more. So this morning I put food and water in the room where they hide, a new kitty scratch thing and a new litter box that they can get to more easily without having to cross paths with the kids.
2. The dog has now found the new food and water stash for the cats (see item #1) so I have to figure that one out.
3. I am cleaning the house and had to get to borax from under the sink. The bottom of the box was wet..again. So no, I did not spill water under there, the sink is indeed leaking.
4. Hubby is way stressed out and is not sleeping well at all. He heard the cat pee somewhere on the carpet last night (see item #1). Trying to figure out how to bring sleep and calm to his life.
5. Our hot water heater is on the fritz and may finally be going out. Water isn’t all the way cold yet, but given that hubby likes hot showers, I should get that fixed. And since that may relax him and help him sleep (see item #4) and our sink is leaking (see item #3), I should make that call to the plumber.
6. Our rhythms are way our of whack and so Tyler is not falling asleep until very late, but still getting up early and so is more emotional these days. It is hard because we want to eat dinner with Daddy, but 7PM is just too late. So have to figure out how to meet everyone’s needs and get kids to bed at an early time so we are not yelling so much.
7. My daughter is a hoarder. She is also wicked smart. I think I am going to have to seek some therapy on this one. There is something built in about it – and rather that break this habit, I want to work with it so we can all co-exist peacefully in this house. I am talking giant piles of stuff collected from around the house daily. It is a serious parenting challenge for me.
8. And I guess if a plumber is coming (see items #3 and #5), he should look at all the bath tiles that are caving in around the tub spicket. They are getting bad and with all the water the kids splash around there, well, I am nervous.
9. I was hoping to keep our budget in check since the party…plumber x 3 problems…I won’t hold my breath. Oy!

So I just had to sit down for a few minutes and chuckle. This is what it is all about – life being a pain in the ass and us having to find the humor and joy in the middle of it. It is what it is. Oy!

Ah, this amazing fall weather. This past weekend was a really awesome weekend. I had an amazing dinner at Eastside Showroom with good friends Friday night, had a great date with my hubby Saturday night and then helped give a Blessingway for a Mama in the same circle of friends I saw Friday.

It was great, but I was pooped by Sunday afternoon. The weather was incredible though and we needed to do something. The idea of a bike ride had been floated, but I didn’t have the energy for that. Instead we had an early-ish dinner and headed down to Town Lake for a walk.

Oh my it was so wonderful! That gorgeous sunset over the lake. All the people out running. The clouds. The lake was so very still that evening that I could get all these reflection shots. There was even this guy in a skiff-like sailboat. It was heaven.

I told Chris on the way home that I was so blissfully happy. I realize more and more that we can so easily just go through the daily motions of life and not really be living. I think sometimes in having kids we just surrendered. There are always reasons why we can’t or shouldn’t do something. But the days we make a decision to do something fun, to go out into the world, I can see just how good we both feel. And so I plan to find more ways to make this happen – for both of us. Otherwise life just seems to dreary – all about surviving to the next weekend. And that is no way to live. And is certainly not what I want to model for my kids.