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!

This week in August was so busy for us. Part of me wanted to lay low, but my dear friend Susan cajoled me into going with she and her daughter to Blanco River State Park. She knows me well. Susan is my partner in crime when it comes to adventuring, so it didn’t take too much convincing..especially since we decided to carpool.

What a great morning! Her daughter and my son have known each other since they were in our bellies. What amused me so is how they had grown. We sat them next to each other and on the drive they started chatting like two old friends would. No silliness, no arguing, just two good friends catching up.

We drove through lovely country roads and arrived in about an hour. Then it was pretty much snack, swim, snack, swim, snack, swim for about two and a half hours. What a lovely, lovely park and respite from the summer heat. If we had more time, we probably would have stopped in some of the small shops in the town and had lunch.

I had driven by this place so many times and regret not going sooner. We will definitely return. And on a weekday, there were very few people, so it was quite nice.

A truly wonderful day! I am so glad that I gave in – it was an adventure that I really needed.

My head hurts. That probably has to do with the fact that we did a cereal and milk breakfast this morning. I need more protein, more sustenance than that. Then followed that up with a latte and nothing else. When my kids aren’t around, I am terrible about stopping to eat. A very bad habit that I pay for around this time of day, 1pm.

I feel like I am in orbit right now. All these ideas, energy, good intentions, and plans are orbiting with me, but I can’t seem to integrate us all into one being. I can’t seem to get moving or get it together.

I’m not giving up though.

“Never give up. Never Surrender.” – Galaxy Quest

I am trusting that in time I will get it figured out. Though I would like to enter my vote for the soon the better.

I feel like I am reeling at the moment. Maybe that is the 2nd latte today? Who cares, it tastes good and makes me happy and therefore is it completely called for! :-p

Life is all it should be, up, down and all over. I am starting a Happiness Project and that is a good thing. An extension of my Enjoyment Project which I am almost done with.

I am adopting all the routines I had dropped a few years ago. Why on earth did i do that? They were brilliant! I have been back on the FlyLady kick for a week and I can see my reflection in my microwave. I don’t think that thing had been cleaned in over a year. I was extra proud for finding a fantastic degreaser recipe in my Clean and Green non-toxic cleansers book. All those cleansers in the store can suck it! Seriously – with 5 ingredients (borax, washing soda, vinegar, baking soda and Dr. Bronner’s) in a wide variety of combinations., I can make you a cleaner for any use. Soft srcubbers, degreasers, stainless steel..you name it!

Chris and I are doing better these days. Dammit, we better be! We are about to renew our vows in a few months and ya know, would be a bit hypocritical to be arguing then! I think as any couple, it can be hard to find balance and to find that time for us. And like leaving metal out in the rain, you forget about it and let it sit outside and it will rust. It is easy to get into such poor habits that we forget the simplest courtesies with each other…then we just get cranky and nothing good comes from that. So we are planning a date together this weekend and that will be so very good. I want to find a romantic spot with a sunset – if you know of one – please tell me!!

The kids…*sigh*. I can honestly confess that I have been a crap Mom lately. Tyler is in a very difficult phase and I am so completely flummoxed. I realize that the best thing I can do is get us out together outside or swimming. There are no distractions for me, the kids are usually content, they get my full attention, and we connect. We need as much connection as we can create, because I feel like I don’t get my children as well as I should. They are growing into themselves. In my son, I see so much of myself and yet he is not me. It is hard to explain, but I don’t think that I am being as supportive.

The challenge remains how to set the boundaries I need to set while allowing him the space to be himself. It sounds very simply, but it is far more complicated. I take his behavior to be one thing, when it may be something completely different. So that is the kid rearing challenge du jour I guess.

Also, I am homeschooling the kids next year. That in and of itself doesn’t scare me at all. What does is that the social network of Mamas that has supported me the last 4 years will all be sending their kids to school and I am nervous about the network not being as available as it once was.
Yes, I am outgoing. Yes, I meet people easily. But the thought of finding a new tribe is a but daunting. Austin has such a large community of HSers, I am sure it won’t be that bad. But right now it looms large over me.

So that is just what is swirling around in my head and with some time to empty it before I pick up the kids, well, I thought I would!

1. Cooking at the beginning of a season

I could have just said summer cooking, but really it is all about the beginning of the season. Just like a new relationship, I am in love with summer right now. We have now started getting a good bit of summer veggies and I am having fun cooking many of our favorites from last year.

Also, I have been making more drinks – lemonade, cherry limeade, margaritas, and hibiscus mint tea with ginger, lemon and sugar (SO good!). I even made a homemade granita last week.

I experience every season in two ways – out in nature and in my kitchen. I love the light meals, the cool foods, the crunch of fresh veggies. It is all so very good!

This girl, oh this wonderful, mellow, sweet, drive me up the wall insane little one. In our family, Tyler and I are both fire. Because his personality is so much like mine, I feel like I already know him. Lately, things he says and does take me back to specific moments in my childhood where I did the same thing. And I love that familiarity, the many bits of sameness that we share.

But this girl, she is air. And this family needs air. She has this way about her that I can’t explain. She is quite verbal so every thing she does has a reasonable explanation and it makes us smile. “Well of course I need to do that, I am doing this.” It all makes so much sense and is so reasonable – she has no idea why I am in such a tizzy about it. She sings made up songs all the time. She has a wonderful imagination. All trash is treasure and can fit into whatever she might be carrying at the time.

“We should talk to Uncle Dean about going up to his house in the snow, because I like snow.”

Or whenever she is enjoying something, “What fun! What fun!”

When you clean out her play kitchen you will find just about everything that has gone missing in the next month. I found Star Wars’ R2-D2 in there yesterday. Chris said, “she likes R2-D2.” I also found rocks, pipe cleaners, paper, more paper, pens, pencils, toys. Whatever is special in that moment goes there. I also find many things special to other family members in there too!

She is so self-reliant. She is hungry and so this little momma raids my fridge. It is all so matter-of-fact. She will only eat a bit of what she gets though and store the rest of it back in the fridge.

She is so charming. Even when I am angry, she has a way of being that distracts me from my anger. I end up smiling or laughing even. And I am not one to let go of anger easily, but somehow she makes it so easy.

She just has a way about her and if you have spent a lot of time with her you know what I mean. She is so unfamiliar to me, though I do see glimpses of Daddy in there. Still, I love the mystery, I love how light it all is, and I am enjoying seeing what comes of this silly girl who goes about her day enjoying life.

This picture above and one below was taken in November. She got back in her cradle the other day and so I snapped another picture. This cracks me up. This little girl of mine loves to cozy right into her cradle with her dolls because she can. And so she lays there covered up in “blankets” singing songs and chatting with her dolls.

In two weeks she will be 4 years old. I really can’t believe it. I really can’t.

Am I depressed? Is it sleep deprivation because I just can’t seem to get any? Am I low on some vitamin? Am I burned out? Am I just an old fart? It is that I am too emotional and so I just tend to end up here time to time? Is it that I don’t take care of myself? Is this a mid-life crisis?

I assume it is a bit of yes to all of the above. Who knows. Last night was a mix of pity party and beating myself up. Sad I am here and blaming myself for being here. Today it was more anger at once again digging myself out when I would rather just give up.

But I am not built like that. I will do what I need to do to get myself to a better place though I am kind of sick of landing here. It seems a little different each time. Maybe I have just been depressed for a while, but it just seems to flare every so often?

Or maybe it is just the icky ebb and flow of life. The biggest bummer is just that being tired makes me a crappy Mom.

All I know is that I don’t feel very wise at the moment and feel like a bit of a fake. And in this moment, I feel very indifferent which is refreshing. No emotion is so much easier than being flooded with them.

I have had some good distraction though. Who knows. I’m tired, but I always am and that seems to be at the heart of the problem.