What a Disaster! Wait....It's Just My Life!

Maybe I do need to become one of those survivalist types. My house is quickly becoming a disaster area that I cannot recover from.

Kiddos come and go. I switch sleeping areas. Attrition comes and goes every weekend. Sometimes I go with him to his home for psychological time out. I work full time. When kids are here, I mommy full time and work full time while they sleep.

Everything eventually gets done, just not at a consistent pace. It's more like fits and starts and lobs and lurches.

Tonight I have a meeting for a new not-for-profit organization and we're in the early stages of incorporation so this afternoon I'll be consumed by work on the company's bylaws and other parts of the articles of incorporation. I'm super excited about the company and will devote an entry to it eventually, but for now it is one of many things that stands between me and the tidiness of my home.

The thing about my life is that it is full of things I love doing. I love hanging out with Squib and watching the Rescuers six times while we build killer train routes, create disastrous ten-car pile-ups, and roll anything and everything down our home-made ramp. I love it when he says, "I want to sit in YOU lap!." I hate it when he gets in trouble 'cause I'm now the adult, but that's usually dealt with shortly and we move on through our day. I love to see him during his nap when it looks like he's been dropped from space into his bed. A napping little boy always looks so much younger and more innocent...hard not to sneak in and smother them with kisses.

I love my writing. Blogs, diaries, memoirs...all of it. I love to put down the stories of my life and the questions I have in writing. I like documenting my family's goings on. I like writing letters and keeping them for posterity. I like writing about important personal occurrences and how I felt and how they change me. All of it. I even enjoy editing these writings so that I become a better writer!

I love singing. Singing truly is a passion that comes from my heart because I just open my mouth and let 'er rip. When it's with the praise team at church, there's lots of rehearsal and attention to lyrics, proper breathing, pitch, breathing, and things like actually using those stomach muscles I work on so hard at the gym. And, in the end, it's about praise. I'm a Christian. So, praising the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are important to me. They are essential to me.

And there is much more....my work (the actual work for money), hiking, family, friends, and reading.

So, I ask you...how do YOU do it? How do you do life and keep the disaster at bay? I seem to always be on the losing end of that battle...hmmmm.....

Scat

In Which We Do Not Walk On the Floor

We have the most awesome housekeeper in the world. She goes to great lengths to work around everyone so that their normal everyday lives aren't interrupted (when we have a "normal, everday life" I'll be the first to know, right??!?).

I know, you laugh. Go ahead!

It's laughable.

Mostly the "normal" part. Then the fact that any normal activity might be repeated. Even more laughable.

Actually, whats laughable is that after 25 years of working with my grandparents and now here, she doesn't consider that SHE might be the most normal part of our normal routine!! She gives me a wealth of advice about the boys and about my life. She loves me and I hope that she knows I love her. What I love most about her is her laughter. And there is much to laugh about here.

My now 4-yr-old lives in absolute terror of the vacuum cleaner. Which, when Beulah comes, leads to an absolute terror of the floor.

All of it.

So, go into your living room, get comfy for the afternoon with your young kiddos. Gloat in your momentary freedom from daft seismic projects and enjoy one recliner while SqB bounces all over the other. Then, in comes Beaulah and the 4-yr-old levitates. In the chair, but levitates as you can see his brain working over the ENTIRE next four hours and all the problems presented by the running of the vacuum and the consequential off-limits nature of the floor.

His current solution is death by Thomas the Tank Engine. This could last another hour-and-a-half. Does this require my conscience (in any form...the hamster wheel one mostly, not the moral one)? When are they going to make flesh-toned iPod earphones for the masses...I have new downloads I could be listening to! I can tell by looking at him when he needs me. Don't even get me started on how this affects our toilet training adventures.

Is it just me or is it coincident that ALL the remaining adults (including one who is on oxygen and lives largely as an invalid) have vacated the premises? Is the floor truly THAT scary?

This again does not speak so highly of me and the tete-e-tete that exists at times between Squash Blossom and I.

5:00 pm.

Four hours since our little conference began here in the living room. The worst is yet to come...the attack on the living room floor itself in which we do not walk on the floor, but we definitely exit.

The exit strategy is never planned, but always, ALWAYS, executed with Scat STYLE!

Livin' Large

Scat...

Mommy? Come Here for a Minute...

Spoken in that soft like toddler voice that is the one statement you just almost can't ignore....notice I said almost. He started off the day calling me "stupid head" and he doesn't know it now, but he's very thankful for this stomach flu he's suddenly developed or I'd have...well, you know...warmed his tail a bit.

But, truly, the stomach part of him started being VERY uncute and I have spent the afternoon drugging, cleaning up, and swabbing my pukey 4 year old pet. And yes, we use Motrin and sometimes alternate with Tylenol for all my super-green organic friends who prefer suffering and more natural treatments to my stone aged methods of medicine (tomato, tomato uh potato, potato--wow, they look the same there, wow...) and every once-in-a-while I got in a serious cuddle!!!

It was glorious. Especially when he said "Momma I onwy wunna way in YOU wap!" We'll repair his grammar/syntax/Squibesian dialect later. He's welcome in ME lap any time.

He said no to pictures while he was "wookeen wike dis!" Then he rolled his eyes at me like I should already know.......duh! That's my little Prince. Love that kid so....

Grrr....Seismic v. Sinusitus

Good grief! Can my head put on one heck of a horror show! Last night was a real doozy. I made it until 12:30 until I woke with the pounding...pounding...pounding blowing my lid off. I was in a comfy bed...the one in the office, so I wasn't in the mood to relinquish my nest, but it got so bad and soon I felt I was hanging upside down what with all the pounding and fluids rushing toward my head (I would say blood, but quite frankly, well, it wasn't primordial ooze).

In any case, I took something for my aching skull and drug my down comforter in to the recliner and spent the remainder of the night there. And on into the morning.

Finished up marking the seismic that we were looking at. Gave it a good once-over. Then, exported all the data for mapping. Came back in to the recliner in question and inhabited it once again.

The thing I hate most about taking these insane ASCII files and turning them into maps is that it takes forever and a coon's age to process them!!! Sometimes size isn't everything.

This portion of our "procedure" generally falls under my father's domain. Today (of all days), rather than looking at a single map at a time, he decides to drag all the data through the same steps together. This is unprecedented. So, no maps yet. Just a lot of waiting and maybe (maybe!!!?) we'll have them sometime tomorrow or the next morning.

Breaking news!!!! We have incoming map!!!!! Just as expected. Minor tweaks on one, but, alas, flatter than a flitter (industry term).

So, back to drugs for my headache and another comfy night in the recliner with my down comforter. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.....................

Rain, Rain Come Again!

We had what my daddy would call a frog-strangler today......I have no idea what that phrase means, but have come to associate it with this pouring rain and killer thunder and lightning. Just the kind of thing I like to watch from the cover of darkness.

Squib wants nothing to do with it. You can point at the sky and say "it looks like rain" and he'll scream "no!" and start running for the next building. He'll strand himself in the office refusing to go out because of the potential for rain in the clouds above him.

Why is he so freaky? (I am asking you, dear blog reader, not making rhetoric)

What could be going through his mind? Did someone tell him something scary about thunderstorms? No. I would only have told him how awesome I think they are. Mommy loves storms. We've played in the rain before and sat on the porch and watched the rain together.

Where's the problem?

And how do you cure a rain-o-phobic?

Labor Day

Hmmmm...well, so much for that holiday. I labored. Not hard due to this scrunge I'm still hacking up, but labored nonetheless. Did get a killer nap and it looks like current project may actually end this week as projected. I simply cannot believe it!!

Fighting frustrations off left and right...dicouragements, too.

Would truly love for something wonderful to happen. In MY life. Selfish, I know, I just desire it so much. I feel perched on this same stump in the wood watching life go by and having no where-withal to jump into traffic and go with the flow!

Seriouly lacking capital. :(

So Much for Objective Number One

No hiking took place this weekend.

None. Zip. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

INSTEAD: Bronchitis/laryngitis and a strong recommendation that I "stop doing whatever you've been doing and take it easy." Oh, geez. That was easy the first day or so 'cause I was seriously tired from all the coughing. Now the only problem is the laryngitis part....guess I 'll have to circumvent my usual method of screaming at people and go straight to pummeling them with a stick.

La Fae and I are scheduled to complete objective one next Saturday providing of course that she and I are both healthy and that there are no tornadoes (os or oes?) or hurricanes . Rain we don't mind. Actually, a little rain makes it kinda nice. All that being said....here I am.

BORED.

Watching movie after movie. Playing games on my phone.

And....watching Indiana Jones and the Chrystal Skull for the first time. I tend to agree with Attrition's take on the whole movie: "Gay and/or Predictable."

*********FIXIN' TO RUIN THE WHOLE THING FOR YA****************

So if you're like me and are the last person on earth that hasn't seen this, don't read on unless you really want my opinion :)

Especially concerning the C-130 with the Russian hammer and sickle on in. Gay! (And we probably mean half-assed but in the middle of nowhere we still aren't up in a fluff about social appropriateness).

However, if you think of it with Sean Connery as Indiana Jones instead of Harrison Ford this thing might have been somewhat interesting. 'Cause this is one old Indiana Jones. Kate (Cate?) Blanchett is OK as the Russian dominatrix (an Indy staple) and OMG! Karen Allen (and her makeup which she doesn't need) show up to make the company complete.

Finally the thick plottens as we find that the greaser kid of Marian's (Karen Allen) is really Indy's son. Then we're off on a family vacation to capture the skull and beat the Russians to some town in Peru. There is a really gruesome attack by killer termites that reeks of the Scarab beetles in the Mummy movies, but these things are, like, bionic. Carrying whole live, kicking corpses into into their mounds. Fascinating. Wouldn't like to meet those on a bad day.

I did get a kick out of the whole waterfall thing (three...times..)...reminds me of a canoe trip down the Mountain Fork river that we took WITHOUT a map or guide. The only warning we had of rapids or waterfalls were the screams from the lead canoe (Buddy and Attrition). Mimi and I retained our no-turnover record, but only barely and we were seriously bailing water out of the canoe. I take that back. I was seriously bailing water out of the canoe.

Back to Indy. My favorite phrase, though, is derived from Indy movies "This is NOT good." Which they've said now too many times. It does actually seem like the movie lasted forever. Sorry, Internet, but it seems so. They achieve something, the bad guys show up. They get away. They achieve something, then the bad guys show up. They get away. They achieve something, then the bad guys get away. Somewhere in there comes my second favorite Indy quote "I've got a bad feeling about this." Which is also a favorite quote from Stars Wars.

Mmmmmm....and finally Indiana Jones flies down the hokey road with the obligatory typical alien(s) and the obligatory flying saucer. Marriage. AND raising their teenage boy.

Definitely a departure from the Indiana Jones staple. And today, well, me no likey. Parts yes, parts no, but on the whole......nope.

In Which I Plan to Hike Forth and Attack the World

After months and months and months and months and months, I have finally found a partner in crime! Here in Radiator Springs, that is not easy to come by!!!! With a total population of 693 you run the risk of never finding a good match as far as partners in crime go.

Buddy volunteered, of course, and I would have taken him up on it, but that wouldn't really be vacating...it would be like taking everyone I see every day and every night standing up, moving one seat to the left and sitting down there in the new seat. No new conversation, no break from each other, no new partnership....just NOT what I was looking for.

So, enter La Fae. She is a person I thoroughly enjoy and I was so glad when she answered my inquiry with a "COOOOOOOL!!!!" That's the kind of answer you want. La Fae was a student of mine and I miss her terribly. We chat when we can, but I am looking forward to tackling our first objective this coming Saturday!!! Woo hoo! We have lots to catch up on and we need to get into shape. I've been working out and I'm not sure of her condition (or mine quite frankly), so we're starting out slow with the 5 mile hike from Double Lake to the Big Creek Scenic Area where we'll lunch while we wait for our shuttle to come pick us up.

We were discussing plans earlier and we both want to seriously attack the Big Thicket area over a three-day weekend. Four days would be better, but she's still in school and they rarely give four-day holidays.

The ultimate in hikes around here would be the Lone Star Trail. No matter where I look, some sources say 140 miles, others say 118 miles, and most stick around 128 miles. Well, La Fae and I want to do the whole thing.

Not in a single trip, obviously, but eventually we'd like to have hiked the entirety of the trail. And I suppose that's our ultimate goal....parts I would imagine we'll just go forth and do. Others, we may tackle in three day weekends.

So, Saturday it is, the first day Bramble and La Fae debut on the trails of Texas...there will be photos!!! Stay tuned! Question is, how shall we reward ourselves?????!!!!