Oh, Waiter, as in someone around here with some PATIENCE!

Well, hhhmmm, stepping back to analyze my lack of recent entries, I would have to surmise that:

blogging from this crappy laptop on a nightly basis from the middle of wireless he-- has proven to be more of a challenge than I (my lazy self) anticipated. May I have some cheese to go with this wwhhiinnee?! Basically, I just can't tolerate the keyboard, and the multiple disconnections. Another refill to the top of my whine glass, please!

Don't read me wrong - I have so TOTALLY appreciated this time away from reality (I return to my real home in the central mountains of Laundry, ID, on Friday). I have had a lot of solitude, stretched out in 60 second intervals between daughter/son/daughter/dog/daughter/son/husband/those highly annoying dishes that magically redirty themselves/daughter/dog interruptions. Please tell me that you other blogger moms out there can appreciate a STRONG desire for just 30 MEASLY MINUTES in a row??!!

You'll have to forgive my complete lack of patience - this has to do with my perfectionistic tendencies. One would never in a million light years guess that I am a perfectionist, especially if one were to judge my house-keeping abilities, or the blatantly obvious lack of. I am the all-or-nothing type of perfectionist, which means I spend an exorbitant amount of time doing, you guessed it, nothing. You know, if you can't do it 'right', why bother?

Perfectionism is just really fear in disguise (a real ugly, ill-fitting one, I might add). Fear of judgement, criticism, failure, etc., etc., etc. Mostly, the fear of not being good enough. So, if we are constantly trying to use the tape measure of the Martha Stewart mentality, the Supermom Syndrome, do you think we always measure up? We cannot airbrush away our imperfections, so we should try a little harder to embrace them.

Yes, you read me correctly; I said, embrace your imperfections, which means loving yourself in spite of them. I may be getting a wee bit of inspiration from Keira Knightly (recently refusing to bump up her cup size in publicity photos). However, I have let my all-or-nothing attitude keep almost 50 extra pounds on my frame since I had our first child, which has now been over 12 years ago, so I think my excuse meter has expired!! I have let my perfectionism get in the way of some much needed healthy weight loss (waiting for the ideal conditions to start the perfect exercise program backed up with the perfect diet), and I have to hope that I haven't realized the error in my thinking too late.

The older I get, the more I realize how little I know, which has been good kindling for this whole blog idea. As many mistakes as I've made it my life thus far, I should have a roaring inferno blazing here in no time.

Whoever Dreamed Up Webkinz Must Be Smiling In Their Sleep

I had to laugh at my daughter tonight (well, from my obviously biased position, she is always saying something adorable; that is, when she is not always saying something argumentative). Chatter-boxing her way right past her bedtime during her usual attempt to stay up later, she launches into a lengthy commentary describing all the new Webkinz creatures coming out next month (if you're not a parent of a seven-ish year-old child, you don't even want to know - they are like Beanie Babies meets Neopets meets the last remains of your piggy bank).

Then she says to me, "I'm mad at myself." And I say, "Why is that?" And she says, "because I haven't been having any dreams lately." This conversation catapulted me back to a memory retold to me by my sister of when I was about five years old. My sister told me she came down the stairs one morning and I was sitting under the kitchen table talking to myself, so of course she had to listen in without making her presence known.

I said to myself/the other me, "Did you have any dreams last night?" And the other me replied, "No, I didn't." I again said, "Are you sure you didn't have any dreams last night?" And the other me retorted, "I already told you, I'M SURE I DIDN'T HAVE ANY DREAMS LAST NIGHT!" Evidently this developed into quite a heated argument, until my sister could no longer contain her volcano of laughter.

She teased me relentlessly for years, one of her many obligatory duties as a big sister.

I've thought often about this funny story, and the importance of dreams, both the subconscious kind and the goal-oriented kind, and how they are interrelated more than we realize. There's the practical side of me that shies away from the concept of dream interpretation or analysis, and then there's the curious part of me that is utterly fascinated. I guess both of these parts of me were sitting under that kitchen table some 35 years ago. Either way, I believe God speaks to us through our dreams, and I've been having some pretty interesting ones since I started to get reaquainted with Him. I plan to do more research, invest more thought, and blog more on the topic in the near future.

Your thoughts? Dreams? Nightmares? I welcome all comments, with the exception of Freddie Kruger's.

Lucy, I'm Home! Well, Kinda Sorta, Not Really

Hello, my loyal and lovely readers . . .it's so good to be back! Sorry for my web absence - my family is in the Federal Witness Protection Program, and we suddenly had to relocate....again, but we are pretty much getting settled in after what makes the third move this year.


Ha! Did I getcha for a half a second? One definite fact about my life - it has never played out like a mystery novel, but my whereabouts these last few days have appeared a bit mysterious. Not intentionally - I just have some, to name a couple, really annoying habits: forgetting to communicate effectively, and losing track of time. But I'll get to that in a minute . . .or 30. Truth be told, I lived in the same house until I was eighteen, so when I moved dorm rooms twice within my first year of college, I almost had to ask for directions. So much for my veil of mystery . . .

When I FINALLY was able to log back onto my blogspot and saw that there were comments (Gasp! Comments?!) I had to look back over my shoulder a few times to make sure there wasn't some other blogger there whom you were talking to. You all missed me.....really?! Thank you, thank you! I feel like Sally Field at the Oscars (her first infamous speech, NOT the 2007 infamous speech), only not as blubbery-eyed and not nearly as well-dressed. (Can jeans and a stained T-shirt come anywhere near the definition of well-dressed?! I better call Webster before the next revision comes out. . . we need to talk. Just keep me away from that what-not-to-wear crazy duo, and that Entertainment Tonight - ahem - 'guy', and my wardrobe can continue to live out its peaceful non-existence.)

Now onto where I have been for the last ten days......and where I actually still am. I have never been very adept at making a long story short, and I am also really bad at explaining details of complicated situations, so here's my nutshell attempt:

After what felt like a rather impromptu pow-wow between my husband and myself, the four of us (and the dog) are staying at a cabin in the woods that we purchased several years ago as an investment (it's been a rental all this time). We are now trying to sell it (for one, because we can no longer afford the payment) which is why we are here. Of course we tried the realtor route first, because who has the time to do everything yourself, but after nine months of that NOT working, we decided we had no choice but to try to sell it ourselves. And in case any of you have been living under a rock instead of a residence for the last couple of years, that teenager known as the real estate market has been behaving very badly; and doesn't like to cooperate with desperate sellers. This is as short of a story as I know how to make it, although there are about a million other mundane details jumping up and down in the background, shouting "pick me, pick me!"

So, my husband had to pry my reluctant blogger fingers loose from my computer keyboard (but what will I do, how will I survive?!) and after a painful separation (from my computer, NOT my husband! Miscommunication is one way ugly rumors get started, so just thought I'd clarify) we temporarily relocated to the cabin in the woods. (I know what you may be thinking . . . only an insane person would weigh the options between life at work or life not at work, but this is just me).

I was jittery at first, but I knew I would relax once we were here. And setting aside the huge mound of predictable guilt that I naturally heaped upon myself for taking a break from my 'real' life, I am secretly loving this! (well, secret from anyone who does NOT read my blog, which I guess would be the population of the entire globe minus five. However, it is the quality of my readers that I care about, not the quantity - I love you guys!)

In amongst playing board games with the kids and chew games with the dog; reassuring several of my family members that I have NOT lost my mind nor am I experiencing a mid-life crisis (I've never felt so loved); and washing dishes by hand (a welcome reprieve from my dishwasher addiction); I have been doing a lot of reading. Yes, actual reading, instead of wishful reading. Somewhere in the last decade I misplaced my love of reading, so I am so happy to have found it again! How I will ever read all I intend to catch up on is beside the point.

So yesterday, we had a wonderful, marvelous, miracle of modern technology installed, one of them thar fancy-dancy phone lines with some of that high-speed DSL, and I am now DSL (Dancing Strange Like). Barring an explosion of this ancient laptop, or a power outage (had one of those already today as a result of a freak storm), I will be back to blogging every night, um, early morning. We won't be here too many more days as there is only so much we can do, and then the cabin will sell or it won't sell; that part will be in God's hands. Meanwhile, I could pretend to be a famous author summering at my cabin, but the movie Misery ruined that fantasy years ago. Thanks again, Stephen King; you always know how to scare the crap out of me.