I Call It: Sitting On Patio With Coffee, Before Work, First Of The Year. Subtitle: Spring In Repose.
It’s Monday. It’s 67 degrees. It’s very windy. (Like, very windy. So much so, that I layed the basketball hoop-thing down because it was creaking and swaying quite loudly while I was sipping my coffee.) Also, one of my tree trunk branches seem to be rubbing in the high wind and making that “limb-falling” sound I have grown to know and dread every time I hear it outside of a Forest Preserve or designated woody area allocated to our world for walking and enjoying nature in its most natural of habitats, the places where all the trees can gather and hang together and lean and fall on each other, or the leafy ground, as they wish. NOT my backyard. Please! Can I get one fresh, new spring day without any tree droppings? Can I get an Amen? Hallelujah people. I am willing all the “high-air” objects to stay there today. Amen.
That’s a picture of the sky facing forward from my chair. Obviously you can’t see the fast clouds moving, but they are. And those are my daffodils. Right on time. In case I never said it before, except that I say it EVERY year, daffodils are my favorite flower. The most faithful of flowers. Hope and trust and loyalty. If a person could be a flower, I guess I would be a daffodil. We share the same qualities if you go by the “meanings of things”. Plus, they are so pretty. Or just shy of pretty…huh? Huh? See what I did there? And they sometimes smell good. Just like me. Yes, I said sometimes.
I have to go. Shower and work. The BF gets to be off because he got a flat tire. Lucky! But if you are reading this (when you really should be outside, though…come on people, it is gorgeous! Go out, then come back in and finish this) and you want to comment or send me your favorite flower with a meaning or just a quick word, I would love to hear it! Something to look at later tonight when I get home. And if you are really fancy and high-tech, you can send a pic. That would be cool! Alright, have a good one out there today. Stay on the ground and don’t let this wind carry you away! Later!
Day Quote
Kind of a cheat today. I wrote this down and really have no other reason to use it. And why can’t TV people be just as relevant as literature people? That’s right. They can! I live my life surrounded by randomness and false hope. But I will take inspiration where ever it comes from. P.S. It is beautiful out today. Almost 60 degrees again. These are my deepest thoughts: I truly have started to like my job, and I am getting wayyyy better at it, and I know we need money, but, if low census must be given…please let it be me. Although by typing this out loud I just jinxed myself. Better hit the showers. Enjoy the day! And the quote. That was, after all the point here. (Again, if you read back to my beginnings, you’ll see that I just typed the quote with little to no comment. Ha. Those were the days.) Later.
Ooops. Almost forgot to give photo credit to my daughter. That is one of her pics from Kentucky. She has many more that I mean to include here. She’s really got an eye for this. Creativity running in the family. Later later.
Words are the first step on the road to deeds.
—Liz Lemon
Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!! To YOU!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!
Hopefully all those exclamation points will help distract from the fact that I am the most horrendous GF in the WHOLE world! This should have been posted yesterday. On your actual birthday! And I am soooo sorry! I was afraid to back date it though because then it might not get sent out to all the e-mails and whatnot. April 2. You are 40 now, tried and true. I was not there because of work. Then I was late, what a jerk! I sent you texts but that’s never enough. And facebook posts are full of fluff. If I get low census we’ll have some fun and then maybe I will move back up to number 1! That’s really all I can rhyme out here in a few short minutes before I shower and leave. It’s not the worst string of words…
Anyway. I love you. Happy happy birthday. This year was big but I didn’t plan. I am bad and take full responsibility for your personal birthday happiness. For everything. Winkity wink. I will try to make up on all counts of birthday wish shortcomings and poor organization skills and maneuvers. I hope it was still good though. My friend at work said that her first husband went totally cray cray when he turned 40. Like, a complete mental 180. Flipped out. So much so that they actually thought he might have had a brain tumor. Ended the marriage. I’m not jinxing, I’m just saying: You let me know. We can fix whatever you want to change. Or at least we can try. Before the dramatics and mid-life crisis. But I’m going to go on record and say that, based on my experience, and the fact that I take care of A-LOT of 90 year-old-plus people, (men and women), the mid-life crisis really shouldn’t factor in until about 45 these days. Just some food for thought on a Wednesday afternoon. Think. Discuss. Comment if you must. (I have to say, I am really not trying to rhyme everything but it just seems to be happening quite naturally today. So weird.)
Last sentences, just for the BF: Happy Birthday!! I love you! You are the best man, all around, I have ever known, for me and the kiddies. XO. I will call you in a few! Later!
Happy March 32nd!
Just kidding. There is no snow. What a jokester I am. I actually took current, up-to-date, real-time pictures of the backyard and that table, to show you what the outside really looks like right at this moment. 5 pm Central time. Midwest America. It’s not warm today. (We only get the stuttering sixties at this point in the year.) It’s back in the 40’s again and it feels cold. But it’s sunny. Warning! The pictures below are uncut and unedited (for time) and are not very pretty. The yard is a sticks and stumps mess like a graveyard for bark parts or the lost world of tree limbs and branches. And all that sunshine blazing down is just lighting up the debris like a Christmas tree. Look here! Crap attack! You will NEVER be free of the Park Forest Tree! That may be a little dramatic, but you really have to live here to know why that is so scary. And true. Read back a bit on this site or just click over on the right there to “Tree Trouble” and you can see what I am talking about. I dare say I may have had an above average amount of bad luck in the breaking/cracking/ falling down department of tree instant removal and upheaval. They like to fall in my backyard. And they like to fall slowly. One piece at a time. Every few months or so. We started out with 3 very large 50 year old trees with many many branches limbs sticks and leaves. Now we have 2 tall “trunks”, at best, that still give me a run for the money when the wind blows too hard. They barely have proper branches on them anymore. Maybe a few limbs, that are very high up and thin, but that still sway on a windy day like drunk gymnasts trying to land on the roof of the house if they could only get the right arc. It’s ridiculous and my own private natural ghost story. The Tale of The Malevolent Maple Tree! The Evil Box Elder! The Horror of the Hackberry! The Horror of the Hackberry is right. That’s the tree ID that is presently lounging around all over the backyard in various shapes and sizes, providing a fine winter home for all kinds of bunnies and squirrels and skunks and probably opossums and racoons. I think those last two actually live up in the tree, but I can’t be sure and I do not have time to check. I see I have gone on and on like I always do and this was supposed to be quick and fast and funny. April Fool joke and all that.
Anyway my original point was to mention that I had been looking back at some of my earlier postings (4 years in March!) and I was pretty funny if I do say so myself. Go ahead and read some vintage posts if you have some time. You will not be disappointed. I also noticed that I had written about the BF’s birthday at that time and even posted about wrapping his present in the Jewel Foods sales paper. Which is what I did again this year! I thought I was so clever. Turns out I am clever. And I have been for at least 4 years, maybe more! Ha. I took a new present pic:
It’s like a birthday/posting/cheap present wrapping flashback. Now, the BF is on his way and we are going to dinner and celebrating the big 4-0 one day early. Presents and cake when we get back. Yes. I made a cake. He doesn’t even know! It’s his fav I think, at least of the cakes that I make. It’s the “Better Than Sex” cake that I also mentioned many years ago. That cake was only presented in a written description posting. This year I have pictures of the process and the results. That cake weighed 10 pounds I think. I will weigh this one before we cut it and let you know. Ok. Better go.
Thank you to all my new friends and followers! I appreciate the time it takes to find or stumble on something new, give it a few minutes to sink in and then actually do the work to “like” and “follow”. I mostly “like” back and “follow” when I get here. Which as you have seen from these last 2 days is like, once every 2 months. So sad. And I like hearing my own voice and seeing my own words. I think that is also pretty obvious if you have spent even one minute of time reading just one of my posts. They get “wordy”.
Ok. Really now. Here’s the real-time pics of today. Enjoy the evening and I’ll be back. I see some long spring days ahead of me, typing deep into the dark warm nights. Later.
Spring is Sprung. 61 on 61.
That would be 61 days since I posted last. That’s really bad. Does anyone but me even click on this site anymore? I seem to be my only audience these days and I am getting tired of looking at that blue sky picture. And so much has happened in those 61 days. And the 42 days before that. Time flies. Believe it. But of course I don’t have time right now to type it all.
Anyway, the other 61 is the the temp outside. Yep. Chicago. 61. March 31. It’s pretty nice. And it’s Easter! Happy Egg Day or Ham Day or Jesus Day. However each of you beautiful people celebrate. It’s Work Day for me. Not considered a “holiday” in the med world, at least not the med world I work in, but money is money. I’m just going to enjoy the weather on the drive to work and be grateful that low census was put on hold for the weekend.
My kids are in Kentucky as they usually are this time of year and the BF is just chilling at home, waiting for Tuesday (April 2) to creep around, and change his 39 year old ass into 40. Welcome to the dark side honey. Finally. It gets depressing being the only old lady around these parts. One of my CNA’s keeps reminding me that I am the same age as her mother. I’m like, could you please stop telling people that?? Anyway I am a bad GF because I have to work, and I did not plan a super surprise for this special start to the birthday journey that takes you onto the path of old age. And wisdom. Let’s not forget all the wisdom we get when we flip the big digits. He’s not complaining or anything, but I still feel bad. I did get him a present though. It’s been here for a week. AND it’s wrapped, and sitting on the kitchen table taunting him! I’m off tomorrow, so dinner and a present to open on your last day of being able to check the “under 30” box on documents and survey forms. I’ll get him with a surprise 41. They never see it coming!
But I need to go. Now. My uniform is dry and I need to shower. Here is a pic from my daughter that she sent from Kentucky where the air is actually colder. And it was raining. More posts to come. I hope. Later.
Day Quote. After 42 Days Of Silence, You Have To Start From Somewhere Too.
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
—Orson Welles, filmmaker
I’m On An Adjusted Sleep Schedule!
That title is from New Girl, the TV show. I won’t go into why that’s funny because, 1. I AM on an adjusted sleep schedule!; 2. It’s late, and I’m trying to hurry and type fast; 3. I am lazy and don’t want to; 4. If you don’t watch the show you won’t think it’s funny anyway; and 5. Watch the show!; but 6. It’s probably too late, because the end of the world is fast approaching and the show airs on Monday, and this is Thursday, and I think you missed your last chance earlier in the week; and 7. Major sad face all around 😦 Emoticon. Finite. The End.
That’s our chalk family portrait done by my daughter over the summer in the driveway. I was trying to find just-the-right-picture for this close-to-the-end post and as I was browsing through my many, many, many bird pics, I saw this one, and bonus(!), it looks like we are all waving. Waving goodbye! It’s perfect!
So I don’t really think that the world is going to end in 24 hours or so, but, if it does, I will tell you this: One, I am avoiding Facebook like the plague. I can’t even imagine what people are posting about it. I mean the whole 12/12/12 thing was bad enough. I hope it’s mostly jokes. But I will never know. Two, I have the day off. Thursday. So technically I get to spend the entire last day on Earth (provided the world is ending at midnight going into the 21st) with my family! We will all die in our sleep I guess, in the house, or something…I’m not sure how it will end. Quickly I hope. I don’t want to live in a zombie world. Too old. Too tired. Isn’t the whole zombie thing played out? Like vampires? Three, If the world keeps spinning and spills into Friday, I’m good until, like, 1:30 at least on the 21st. Then I have to go to work. My kids will be at school. The BF will be at work. All of us scattered around Illinois. That would be sad. But, Four, Even sadder would be if the world crawls its sick self all the way until midnight on Friday. The kids and BF will be snug in their beds and I’ll be driving on the expressway. Blah humbug.
At any rate, this is something I wanted to sneak in, just in case. Thanks for reading. Thanks for checking every day, whoever you are, and keeping me active with approx 10-20 reader “hits”. Or the same reader over and over. Either way. Even if you were just randomly searching and came across the site and stopped for a minute just to scan the words and liked even one sentence, I thank you. Also: I love my kids. And the BF. My family. My friends. And that feeling of peace and comfort and total relaxation that I get at 8 am when I am laying in my bed, on my side, covered to the neck in a heavy, warm, down comforter, eyes closed, body loose, about to go back to sleep, after getting the kids up at 6ish to send them to school, and after going to bed around 2-ish (3-ish or even 4-ish, like tonight) because I stay up too late after work playing stupid app games on my phone and because I’m not tired. Whiny whiny whiner. That feeling right before falling totally asleep again is really the best feeling. Like, I could die on the spot and not care if that’s how it felt, kind of feeling. Deep sigh. Then shake it off, because yuck! Too much. Too ghastly for tonight. Wasn’t my intention to make this, possibly the last post, so long and wordy. I can’t even reign it in near the end. And I need to wrap this up seriously and get to bed already.
I actually have a plan for the day and it involves doing, and completing, every single Christmas thing I need to have done before the big day, especially since I have to work right up until we do our family Christmas. That would be Sunday. I am off Monday, Christmas Eve, and that’s when I wanted to do my personal family x-mas. Just me and the BF and the kids. And the Sears repair man. Oh yeah. Did I mention that my clothes dryer took a big crap a few days ago and that I also have to go do laundry tomorrow, at an outside facility (outside the house, not actually outside outside)? No? Well it did. And I do. And the repair guy is coming on Christmas Eve morning to fix it (I hope). Sucks for him because he has to work. I am only off on Monday because it’s my regular day off, otherwise I would be working too. That would have been a fun family x-mas to remember. The kids are going with their dad, later in the Christmas Eve afternoon, the way they always do, and since I have to work on Christmas anyway (First time. EVER. In my whole life. I was soooo spoiled with that office job) I won’t see them again until I get home on x-mas or the next morning. On Wednesday. Just another day. Also a day that I have to work. No more winter breaks or office shut downs for me. Oh well. That’s why everything has to be done tomorrow.
But don’t get the wrong idea, I am not complaining. Big whip, a broken dryer and no time to buy a present? Boo hoo, cry me a river. I know that I already have what is most important in my life right now and I won’t waste any time fretting over something like wet clothes and a botched up day. My kids are with me. I have a fab BF. And a rockin’ set of family and friends. I have a pretty decent job, some money to spend, and a house to live in. It’s good enough. I think I already said that earlier in this Armageddon novel, but it bears repeating all the same.
I also have a list and a plan and a general direction of which stores and in what order and what needs to be done in my house. Like, all of it. I dragged all the decorations out into the living room, 3 big boxes worth, and put out about 4 of them. 4 single decorations. 5 if you count the tree. It has lights and a star. And one decoration. It’s a green glitter glass ball ornament that my daughter got from school. I thought, at first, it would be the starting point. Then I thought, well, we can just have the one ornament, like it’s a “thing”, and move it around every day. Then I had another thought: We can just have one ornament. And it can just stay where it’s at. Bottom left when you look at the tree, hanging off the lowest fake branch. Picture proof coming right up.
Anyway I really do have to end this. It’s almost 4 am Chicago time. No, now it is 4 am. Almost 4:30. Tick tock. The weather is supposed to take a big fat ugly turn in a few hours and dump our first sticky snowfall on us here. But right now it is pouring rain. Pouring. Like non-stop. And it has been since I left work at 11. That is 5 hours of fun rainfall just soaking in and pooling up all over the cold-ass ground. They say the temps are going to drop, and the rain will turn to snow. That’s good right? Snow covered ice slicks all over everywhere. Damn Midwest. The BF has work. The kids have school. My son is sick and has had a 102 degree temp for 2 nights in a row now. He hasn’t had a fever in years and years. But he went to school with that temp down to a cool 101 on Wednesday for finals and he has to go again today for more finals. He’s tough. Both my kids are tough. But I still wake them up every day for school because I can.
Here’s to all the hard working, staying up late, getting it done people I write all this crap for. Have a very merry Pre-Christmas and Weekend-Before the holiday. I will try and write more words in the next few hours and days to come if time and the universe allow. I apologize for all the “likes” used in conversational phrasing and the numbering thing/gimmick. I also used way too many commas, parentheses, and italics. I just can’t help myself sometimes. I love love love English and punctuation! What a nerd! Thanks for hanging out with me anyway. Peace, and that picture as promised. Later.
It’s Your Birthday! It’s Your Birthday! (One Week Later)
For a girl who cannot take enough pictures of herself, she would not let me get even one picture of her for her birthday. This is the best I could capture, taken under extreme protest. And she looked so cute in her new birthday pj”s from her grandma. Teenagers. Just when you think you know a girl, the 14 year old life truck hits them hard and you can’t push them out of the way fast enough. Sigh. Anyhoo. This is my girl. She turned 14 a week ago on the 21st. The day before Thanksgiving. And a Wednesday. So there wasn’t a lot we could do by way of party or celebration. She had a few dinners and saw a few people, spaced out over the week, so I think it actually worked out better. Her birthday lasted way longer than most. And here is one more day, and a post just for her, to acknowledge the joyous occasion of her birth! She is fully entrenched in teenageville now. And what you can’t see behind the pillow is her new best friend, I-Phone. I hope that little device doesn’t put out any serious UV radiation rays, because if it does we are looking at a generation of young adults that are going to have major face skin cancer in a few years. And probably some crippling finger arthritis too. They hold it so close to their faces. Pushing those tiny keypads with their poor little crampy fingers and thumbs. Tip of the day: Wear sunscreen while operating your mobile device. Slather it on good and thick, especially over the face and neck area. Just in case. And maybe give those hands a break every few hours. Extend those digits outward. All that cracking you hear when you first do it is not always a good thing! Flex and extend. Flex and extend. Jazz hands. Whatever it takes. Alright I need to wrap this up. Shower and work. Must make more money to support the daughters other obsession: fake nails. Oh yes. We buy too many packages of this addiction in a box. I think that I will start posting all the nail work that Stevie has dedicated the rest of her waking time to creating. It will be very easy to make this the new winter feature on this site because she takes a picture every time she sticks any new nails onto her hands, which is practically every day. I am not exaggerating. Stevie’s Nails. Watch for it. In conclusion:
Happy happy birthday! I love you my beautiful, little girl! Hope the day and week and weekend were the best you have ever had! At least until next year! XO Mom.
Veterans Day
To all the soldiers who were, are, and shall be! You let me have the freedom to be as serious or silly as I want on a daily basis. And it’s a pretty good reason to re-post my favorite picture of my dad. Now go out there and get yourself a free meal from whatever restaurant is offering it in your town! It’s the small things sometimes that make a big difference. And since I haven’t won the lottery yet here in this big, free country, I’m heading in to work myself on this glorious, sunny, windy, unseasonably warm, November day! But still, life in America… not too shabby.
Thank you.
Get Your Vote On!
It’s election day! GO VOTE! If you don’t, you have no good ground to stand on when getting into political arguments with all of your friends. Whatever your beliefs may be, if you don’t take the opportunity given to voice that opinion, then you do not have the moral right to bitch about the system and how this country is run. Sorry, but this is your chance to have your vote counted. And don’t give me the argument that it doesn’t matter either way, or one vote can’t make a difference, so that’s why you don’t even bother. It’s a flawed world with an imperfect government and no one will ever be happy 100%, but that’s the beauty of America. You have the unalienable right to pretty much do and think whatever you want, but you have to flex that muscle when the heavy lifting presents itself. Every person matters! If you want to make the big changes, you have to start small. Think globally, act locally. Success works it’s way up to the top, not the other way around. Is that enough poster-board rhetoric for today? Besides, voting is super easy and quick if you use the paper ballot. Pick up that black felty marker and connect your lines for the future. I was number 92 today at 8 am. I wish I was a higher number but at least I was counted.
So that concludes today’s post and the lecture on freedom and democracy. Just do it! (Ha. One more line.) In honor of government and election day, and to all the high schoolers that have or will be, taking that dreaded Constitution test to move on to the next level of education, I would like to end this post with my favorite School House Rock tribute to: The Preamble. You know you have to memorize it right? How many of us sat in those little one armed desks singing this song to ourselves to remember the words?
Anyway…one more time for the cheap seats in the back…GO VOTE!!!
just shy of pretty 