6:55 am, friday morning

here i am.
6:55 am.  friday morning.
i've hit the snooze alarm too many times already.
each time choosing to fold myself back under a heavy comforter.
warm.
it's raining.
raining, not snowing.
hooray.
the sound of the rain coming down is one of my favorite sounds.
perhaps it is just my love of water in all forms.
when i was young i would lie in my bed and listen to rain on a tin roof.
now i am listening as the rain trickles down this one.
melting all the snow outside for sure.
right now i am content to lie here and listen, from under the heavy comfort of the bedsheets.
but know i must get up soon.
pack the lunches, kiss the little ones goodbye, either a smack on the cheek or a nuzzle on the top of their heads.
slog through ten hours of work.
friday, the longest day.
but on the other side, freedom.
weekend.
a movie to snuggle up and watch together tonight.
friday nights the girls get to sleep in my bed and i camp out in one of theirs.
i have a free weekend this weekend.
had asked if anyone wanted to go out.
but now thinking about taking my camera to the ocean.
something about all that sea.
makes me think about endless possiblity.
lying here in bed, first thing in the morning.
faint light through the windows.
quiet.
makes me dream of possibilities.
before my feet hit the floor.
cold.
before the business begins.
but i'll carry possiblity with me today.
i promise.
and hopefully, i will capture it through my lens.
this weekend.
and bring it home.

the sounds of happiness

{this morning, 6:00 a.m. just she and i surveying the snow}

Emily is in her room.  It's bedtime.  She's giggling like a fiend, then laughing until I swear she could split her seams.   I am two rooms down doing laundry and I can hear her as they video conference in her room before I tuck her in.  I don't eavesdrop, but I catch bits and pieces.  Like him telling her, "I bet you could do anything if you really wanted to, even lift an elephant" and her saying "Do you want to see how big I can make my nostrils"?

This little (big) girl is unrecognizable from four years ago as the one who had panic attacks in the corners, the one from three years ago who refused to go to school, the one two years ago who had crazy attacks of anxiety over stomach woes.  We haven't had a breakdown in months over feeling sick, the stomach aches just about gone, just a few bouts of gas attacks now and again.

I am taking credit for about all of this progress.  I deserve it.  It's been a difficult journey and a lot of hard work, a lot of long days and nights, a lot of tears from her and me both as we've made our way together.

But she talks to him differently then she talks to me.  If I stand outside in the hallway, I find she tells him things I wouldn't otherwise know.

I knew he was good for me.  I realize now how good he is for her too.  She has a happy giggle I never knew she had before.

an exercise in emotion

{For a short while today, grief came to visit like an unwelcome friend}

This was my BAM self portrait this week.  I try not to duplicate things I've posted here, versus Flickr, versus Facebook, but I needed to acknowledge these feelings.   It seems part of this acceptance process is knowing discomfort, allowing it, and documenting it.  I have found as I take on this self-portrait exercise I want to capture all my emotions even the heavy ones like I had this weekend.

This portrait like so many of the others I have taken was done with the self-timer.  I was reading over some things that I had written that afternoon.  It appears Saturday has become my writing day and it appears I have some demons to work out of my system.

I had watched a movie that weighed heavily on grief and loss.  I have to be careful about what I surround myself with.   I seem to absorb so many of the emotions that occur around me.  This movie brought out so many of my own emotions about motherhood, about loss and regret.  I wrote for quite a while about my thoughts on my past.  On how my family that I created did not turn out to be the family I had wanted and envisioned.  The many years that were wasted in a  loveless marriage weighed heavily on my mind.  It hung with me somewhat even through today.

Sometimes I think that writing might be a sort of therapy.  Other times like right now, I think it's best to let the past lie in the past.  I don't want to go back there again.  I have a future to look forward to.  One I fought hard to get to.  And I cannot be so unfair to all that hard work.

perfection

{i have been playing a lot with words lately}

I had a bit of a meltdown last Thursday.  I had been sick and worn down.  Dotoomuchitis and bugbityouitis.  I have a problem, I want everything to be perfect.    I am a failed perfectionist.

I have tried to let go a little this past week and let myself just be.  Some days have been easier than others.  Tonight, I happened across an article in an old Yoga Journal entitled, "Making Peace With Perfection" and it was this line from the article that stood out to me:

"In Sanskrit, one of the words for perfection is purna, usually translated as fullness or wholeness".

Wordless Wednesday: An Education

be mine.

The first time we were together I broke up with him on Valentine's day.

This year, I made a pretty package. Cut out confetti, glitter, red and white tissue paper, a mushy card and a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. Mailed it with a kiss and the promise of plenty of  embarrassment when it arrives at work.  Did I mention the box is pink?

Sometimes I am glad we get this chance.  Now older, we get to do this all the right way. More so, we get to really relish and appreciate it, and not take it for granted.

love.hate.love

i just need to say a thank you to everyone who left a comment on my "hating the house moms" post and i'm hoping that everyone who left a comment is here again today to read this.

i wrote that post on a night i was literally and physically drop dead exausted. i vented all my frustration on my regrets for not being what i had dreamed perhaps one day to be or maybe just vented my frustration at being alone.

when i wrote that post i was hoping it wouldn't come across as an attack on stay at home mom's.  i wanted it to be envious at best, because that was what i was feeling, with a weird side of tired annoyance sneaking in.

i almost took the post down the next morning because i thought it was outside of my usual nature, but then i realized that it is because of this that i should post it. i agree with what jennifer said about being tired of the "perfect blogs" where everything is always just so, like the pages of a Martha Stewart magazine.  those blogs serve their purposes and there are sometimes that I like to peruse them, but cannot do it on a daily basis.  this blog is MY life documented,  so it will of course have beautiful moments and moments of frustration.  love/hate/love.  such is this beautiful life.

but it is nice to know that everyone has bad days.  that everyone has spills on their floors and children tearing their hair out and long, lonely days whether you are mother or not, working, WAH, SAH, single or parenting with a partner.  In the end it was nice to read what all of you wrote and it left me feeling definitely not alone.  

there is always in every minute of every day, someone having a more difficult time and someone having a less difficult time.  i am just thankful that i have come to have two things:  1. the ability to accept negative feelings, roll with them, and move on and 2.  a great tribe of people who listen to me whine, hold me up and keep me going.

the sound of his voice makes me crazy happy in a way i didn't know existed.

he is my best friend,

the one i want to tell anything, everything to.

falling so in love with him was  a bonus.

he's got my heart, my mind, my body, my soul.

his is the heart that sings a song only mine can understand

he might just look ordinary to you,

but he is the perfect match to me.

i can feel him even when he is not here, which these days is always.

i'm not sure of too many things......ever.

but i'm sure about this one.

sometimes falling in love the second time is even more brilliant than the first.

on yoga (again).

it's been far too long since i've had a regular yoga practice.  last night there was no more pushing it off there was just simply, get down on the floor.  i didn't even bother to go back upstairs and get my mat, i just started right there on the hardwood floor in the living room.  i was just out of a hot bath.  i had Peter Davidson playing on the computer and i had all the lights out except one dim one in the kitchen.

yoga for me is really a mind, body and spirit exercise.  there is no better way to get present with yourself.  i cannot do my yoga practice with the kids in the house.  there is too much distraction.  i need the dim and the quiet to get to this place.  i took yoga classes and i enjoyed them.  i liked the camraderie.  i liked having someplace to go once a week at 6:00 pm after work to throw my legs up on the wall, work my body, learn and then relax into what i can only call the true bliss of savasana.

but here at home, in daily practice, in the dark quiet moments everything else goes away.  it's just me and my body and my breath.  the thoughts and the questions and the worries dissapate as my focus switches to my breath, and the way i feel my body stretching itself.  the reminder to stop and drop my shoulders, to push a little more or less.  the focus on remaining in pose and then sinking into the next.  there is a peace there.  in that present moment when the balance is a work in commitment, when you feel your arms or legs reaching into infinity, when you realize, hey, i'm alive, and then when you rest and relax, feeling soothed by yourself, by the energy inside you, by the world around you.   yoga practice puts me in a protective bubble where no one or no thing can touch me.

i know that this is not what yoga is to everyone.  i realize we all have different reasons and different expectations when going into it.  for some it is a spiritual practice, for others it is just exercise.  for me it is a bit of both.  i feel connected to myself and the world around me when i practice  and i am a better person for it.

i  sometimes wish everyone could experience this and i think how i would explain to them this feeling, but i cannot.  it's not describable to me, though i keep trying.  one day i might get it down in words but for now i'm just going to keep sticking to my practice.

hating the house moms.

**disclaimer, after I wrote this post I took a hot bath and did a 30-minute yoga practice that inspired me to write a much more positive post.  I almost considered deleting this one, but decided it was a part of me, so look for the uplifting yoga post this weekend.

Not really.  I'm serious, I'm not a hater.  Okay, maybe just a little bit.  It's nothing personal, trust me.  It's not specifically  you that I dislike.  It's not your hair or your personality, or your habits.  It's just that you are there and I bet you are there with the kids.  And I bet you are not trying to cram bills and laundry and housecleaning and homework and dinner planning and photography and blogposts and a fifteen minute hot bath into one night or one weekend.

And I bet you would die to get out of the house right now.  Perhaps one of your little ones has been sick for four days and you would give anything just to run away and go to the grocery store, alone.  Or maybe your thinking, she has no idea,  she gets to have adult conversations, no one screaming "mama"  four hundred times a day.  I bet she actually gets to read on her lunch hour.  AND then she gets a paycheck.  Every two weeks.

It's been a rough week.  Again, it seems.  Every week is hard and no amount of planning or organization can defeat the frustration or the tiredness.  No one said motherhood was easy.  No one said balancing work and home life would be easy and NO ONE said  running a house and a family alone would be easy.  I love Karelyn so very much more than life itself, but if someone would have made me pause and say "wait, before you add a second child to your almost two year old, you need to know you'll be doing this alone in about four years",  I might have rethought my position. (if you know me at all, you'll say "she's just tired" and know that I would not).

I know staying at home with your kids can be tough, but right now, I cannot help but think if I just had one month to  focus on house and home, my family and my art, goodness what could I accomplish?  What would my house look like?  What would I actually be able to remember on a day to day basis versus the flying in ten directions and saying a prayer we are remembering everything.  And this is with paper calendars and multitudes of lists and appointments scheduled in my cell phone.

Today, I had to have multiple reminders and I practically forgot one important thing.  I actually DID forget to reschedule Emily's dentist appointment, but that wasn't the important thing, that would be almost forgetting to call home and find out which house the girls would be at this afternoon when their grandmother on their father's side picked them up tonight.  

Then there was the fundraiser.  I had to pick up the school fundraiser.  The only notification came as a recorded message last night.  Good thing I got the message, because as the fundraiser is frozen food, if it was not picked up by between 4pm and 6pm tonight then it was to be donated.  Are you serious?  This is the forgetful woman's nightmare.  So I had it written on my calendar, my friend at work wrote it on a post it note and paperclipped it to my bag.  Then I scheduled it on my cell phone and let it beep to remind me every five minutes between the time we closed at work and the time I pulled into the school parking lot.

I planned on working out tonight (hahahahahahahha).  I just want to go curl up under a blanket and eat chocolate chip cookies.  I hid all my dirty pots and pans in the dishwasher and they might stay there until Friday night when this work week is over.   I'm going to ignore the cat litter box and the unswept floor and the hidden dishes and the broken closet door and go climb in a hot bath for a bit.

So I'm sorry.   To the class mother who knows every child in my daughter's class who I never even knew your daughter was my daughter's best friend when I met you at variety show tryouts.

I'm sorry, mother who is scrapbooking every moment of her child's upbringing and creating cute slideshows to music.

I'm sorry, mother with the ability to actually carry a camera and complete a 365 project.

I'm sorry, mother about ready to publish your first book, that you worked diligently on while the children were at school or napping.

I'm sorry, mother who is posting daily Flickr photos of her everyday life full of cups of tea, or pretty flowers arranged neatly on a table or of kids eating homemade, nutritious lunches or creating amazing crafty projects from ordinary household items.

I don't really hate you.  I'm just tired, and cold, and bitchy and lastly I'm just jealous.

How did you end up with my life?

Sometimes the one I ended up with seems ridiculous.

to get out.

I am handling winter better this year besides the idea of an icy road that floors me and keeps me huddled indoors.  I'm sure my co-workers are cursing me as they work while I sit here typing this.  I have an aversion to the cold that I'm trying to overcome.  I just don't like, being cold.  I am missing the parks.  I am missing the forests.  I am missing the trails.  I am missing the waters. But I have realized that as long as roads are passable we can still get to these places.  There is nothing wrong with scrambling, with sliding with exerting.  I desperately need some exertion right now.

It's been busy.  First Christmas weekend, New Year's weekend, Karelyn's Birthday weekend, sleepover weekend and now we are heading into weekends filled with practice for the upcoming variety show. This weekend we will have practice, but we will try to fit in sledding as well.   I had wanted to try to find a trail, perhaps on my own if the girls go to visit their father on Saturday.  I am tired of being IN.

So many things to fit IN this life.  So many projects, so many ideas, so many interesting places to go, things to do.  The actual handling of "doing" all these things with the girls makes me tired, especially trying to cram it all into two days in between the grocery and the laundry.   I need more life time, I need more life.  Life is getting exciting, and I need some more space for it.