December 3, 2003

Just dive a little deeper, darlin! 

I think I've decided that when I'm not having any fun in life, I'm going to just keep going deeper in the well until I hit water (or rock bottom, whichever comes first).  After a stressful week or so, things are starting to feel much better now.  I didn't even realize I was stressing until looking at it in the rear view mirror.

It has been a psychological whirlwind lately, though!  First working on the thing with ex-husband anger and now staring down Christmas, which for us, isn't really Christmas, but is Winter Solstice because we're stupid Pagans who celebrate four stupid days earlier than the rest of the world.  Nah, I'm just playing about the stupid part.  I've always loved having our Christmas on the 21st.  While the rest of the world is still scurrying about, going through Pre-Christmas madness, stressing and freaking out, I'm all finished and usually, my decorations are already down.  It's... different.  It's actually quite peaceful (until I decide I want to go out to lunch or dinner on the 25th without remembering that everything is locked up and dark) and relaxing, plus, my kids really enjoy being different and getting Christmas early.

Anyway, today, I feel even better than I did yesterday.  I slept very fitfully, if you could call it sleeping.  The alarm rang way too early and it was a chore for me to pry open my eyes.  I could hear Dylan and Nathan playing in the next room, so I knew the day was already underway.   I closed my eyes again, wishing I could will the clock hands back a round or two.  As I lay there, I had this sudden, unsolicited feeling wash over me that everything is going to be OK.  I tell myself that a lot and I do believe it, but I've never felt it with such assurance as I did in that moment.  I wasn't even really thinking about anything in particular, just letting my brain rest and drift a bit.  It was as though someone spoke in both of my ears at once and injected me with fast-acting stress-away.  It was lovely enough that I stayed there a bit longer and reveled in it.  Kids actually got out the door on time, even.

That feeling of assurance has stayed with me so far (it's 9:30am), but I'm still quite sleepy.  I think when Eric gets back from fixing our friend's surround sound system that I'm going to take a nap (I love naps... they're so underreated). 

Nathan and I went for a long walk to the shoe store yesterday.  As it turned out, he outright rejected all of the shoes there, so he walked right back home in his too big hand-me-downs from Dylan.  He doesn't go out that much anyway, so he can just wear fat socks or something. 

The walk back was lovely.  It's been very misty-rainy lately and our city is very, very green all of the time, so the rosemary that is favored for roadside greenery and the evergreens were really heavily scented.  In our neighborhood, a number of homes have ivy covered yards, complete or partial.  This is fat leaved ivy that is very prolific and grows over the yards and up the trees and fences.  It looks really lovely and definitely eliminates the need to mow.  What is interesting to me is speculating on what is under all that ivy, year after year.  It seems like there'd be all kinds of critters taking up housing, plus, of course, you can't walk on it, not only because it would goof up the ivy, but because lord knows what would grab your leg and pull you under the vines into the bowels of hell.  People just need to think these things through.

I also thought you might enjoy some recent pictures of the kids:

Don't know why Nathan ended up with such a dirty face that day.

Busted on Mom's exercise bike.  Teamwork is everything.

Other fun stuff: