Chibbs

In other news... we adopted a new baby last weekend. He's the reason I've been absent for the past several days.

Chibbs - 8 weeks

It's been 7 years since we've had a dog; 18 years since either of us have had a puppy. I'd forgotten how much WORK they are! Of course, I'd also forgotten how much FUN they are too.

 

This little cutie OWNS us. His funny little barks and growls and the way he runs when he plays are almost more than we can stand. And we are constantly amazed by how smart he is!

 

Telling us ALL about it - hehehe

How many 9 week old pups do you know that have already figured out how to ask to go outside? I'd be willing to bet not many!

 

Anyway - he's the big news of my life in the last couple weeks and will probably continue to be for a while. Looking forward to his first snowfall tonight and tomorrow. Will let you know what he thinks.  

Hallowend

Ah Halloween...I have loved you a long time. But I think I need a break from you. 

I have spent years and countless dollars wooing trick-or-treaters to my door with top of the line candy and ever more elaborate decorations. I have carved pumpkins into vicious specters, smiling jacks, foul demons and pop culture characters. I have built ghouls with reaching arms and glowing eyes. I've boarded up my windows, gotten tangled up in "spider webs" and agonized over which spooky sounds CD to play. I've argued with malfunctioning fog machines and threatened plastic skeletons with dismemberment. I've planted ground breakers in gravel and grass and mulch and delighted in little people skittering around them. Countless afternoons have been spent searching the internet for instructions on how to make this or create that. I've studied my candy hoard and wondered if maybe, just maybe I should go get some more - because I do NOT ration what I give. 

Halloween celebrations at my house have long been a free-for-all and I've enjoyed the festivities to the hilt every year. I have reveled in the admiration of neighborhood kids and preened in the oohs and aahs of their parents. My husband and I started planning months in advance for how to be bigger and scarier than the year before. And each year we've succeeded. 

THIS year we did the same as we always have. Built and planned, crafted and carved. But THIS year was different. There was little joy in either the preparation or the execution. It felt like obligation and routine. The magic was gone. 

So, we are taking a break. Stepping away until it's fun again. Scare on everyone. Scare on. 

Till we scream again....

Shoe Squreaking Goobers

Went grocery shopping today and heard a funny story from the check-out clerk. I'll be honest, watching her work with the guy in front of me, she seemed a bit slow. Not stupid or disabled or anything just not too swooft on the uptake. 

Well, it gets to be my turn and she's making small talk. <Beep> How are you today? <Beep> <Beep> Fine, fine. <Beep> Find everything you were looking for? <Beep> <Beep> For the most part. <Beep> And then she stopped. Stopped cold with a distant look of extreme irritation on her face. 

You know that wet squeaking sound tennis shoes make on tile floors? Mm hmm... there was a teenage boy just squreaking his way across the front of the store. Doing his best to make every step count. And she was NOT happy. 

I made a comment along the lines of "Wow that's annoying...", hoping the <Beeps> would start back up. She looks me dead in the eye and says "I HATE THAT NOISE." Thankfully the <Beep> started beeping at regular intervals again so I just rolled with it. 

Maccayla (that was her name) kept talking and told me a story about how she'd embarrassed a teenage boy who was squeaking around not too long ago. Said she'd heard as much as she could stand and finally said "Would you please stop that!?" His response was to get belligerent with her and pop off with "Excuse you? (squeak squeak)" When she said she told him that she "WAS having a good day" but "was NOT afraid to lose her job taking those shoes off his feet..." I lost it. It was my turn to stop cold - bags in hand, somewhere between the turnstyle and my cart. And then I laughed. I laughed so hard I got a cramp in my neck and nearly dropped the bags I was holding.

Good for her! I often feel sorry for the clerks at large retailers. They have to bear the brunt of unhappy customers, emotional new mothers, screaming toddlers, humiliating insufficient funds. They represent the company to the public and yet are usually unappreciated and underpaid. I certainly don't have the patience to do what they do and most definitely wouldn't have a smile on my face if I had to. So yeah...good for her. I say she earned the right to tell a goober to stop being a shoe squreaking goober.

Nostalgia

UPDATE: IN JANUARY OF 2020, I WENT BACK TO SCHOOL! I am pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and desperately want to teach. I believe in the power of words and can't think of any other way to retire than by helping others tell better stories. 

I want a new career. I need a new career. I want to go back to school. HOWEVER - starting over is hard on the budget. And school isn't free. School won't fit into the budget when you have kids in college to support. 

I'm good at what I do and believe it's important. Sadly, the companies which need my expertise don't seem to agree. Or rather, they agree only as far as meeting the minimum requirements go. My work is considered a necessary evil and my office is avoided unless there's a problem. And if there's a problem, I'm expected to fix it an hour before it happened and the solutions should never cost any money. I've gotten pretty good at working with no budget but getting superior results. 

I'm jealous of my daughter when she calls telling me her latest collegiate adventures. I miss that part of my life and wish I had appreciated them in all their sweet, cheap, happy glory when I was living them. I miss the late night smoky, beer and cheap wine fueled conversations and arguments which cemented friendships for all time. I miss laughing at the stupid and the brilliant. I miss waiting tables in a bar and walking to my car alone in the dark after my shift. Terrifyingly fearless. Immortal. Responsible and clueless. Perfect. 

I miss those days - so much. 

I had nothing and wanted everything. Now? I have everything and want the nothing. 

Abernathy

So yesterday's 30-minute blog was a bust. Sat down to write and IMMEDIATELY got called away to something else. Letting it go, no judgment, self-forgiveness, all that self-love mumbo jumbo. Moving on...

I've noticed that I am most often inspired to write at the most inopportune times. Like when I'm running through an airport or driving on the interstate...or pooping. Seriously - who carries a notebook and pen to the bathroom? Besides, I'm usually inspired to write little notes of wisdom to my kids, which always strikes me as incredibly arrogant and a waste of time. My children aren't the type to listen to the wisdom of elders. Most definitely not any wisdom of mine.

MY mother says it's the Abernathy in us. Now, I'm not sure how the Abernathy's got pulled into the picture nor how they would feel about being an adjective used to describe hard-headed, mulish, cantankerous people. I have no idea how I might be related to any Abernathy's and don't really care. My mother would reply to that with "Exactly." Sigh.

I guess it boils down to this: there's so much I still want to teach them but can't. So many lessons I want to save them from having to learn the hard way. I talk to them and argue with them and love on them and watch them and hold my breath. I have drawn blood biting my own tongue and choked on I-told-you-so's. It is at those moments that I am thankful for living thousands of miles away. I don't want them to see in my face the lie behind my words. My poker face is nonexistent and on the phone, at least I can SAY the right things without fear of them seeing what my face is saying. I can hang up and yell at the emptiness in my house all the things a good mother never says to her children - no matter how old they are. I struggle with my Mom-voice and my ME-voice. These are my own growing pains and ones I'm glad to not share with them.

After I'm gone, I'd like to think they'll reflect fondly on my benevolence and understanding and empathy. In truth, I expect they'll be glad to be rid of me and my obsessive need to plan ahead for every possible outcome, my nagging tendency to answer questions with far more information than the question called for, my critical eye for things which can be improved. I hope they realize that those behaviors weren't aimed at them. They are more and better than I could have ever hoped. No, my heaviness is aimed at me. I plan ahead so I don't let them down, even though I feel like their disappointment in me is inevitable. I overload them with information because I want to give them ALL the tools, all the tools I had to earn. In my attempts to lighten their loads, I end up burdening them with implied expectations. I push for improvement because I will never, ever feel like I'm good enough to be their mom.

I know it's a convoluted way of thinking but it's how I'm wired. My insecurities project themselves on my children and horribly, inevitably manifest themselves in my relationships with the ones I love and treasure the most. If the Abernathy's feel the same way and beat themselves on each other because they love each other so hard, then I guess my mother is right. But please don't ever tell her I said that.

Welcome to Thirty Minute Rant!

I have missed writing and journaling and "getting it out" for so long and wondered why on earth I ever stopped! After some reflection, I realized I stopped journaling because 1. I was married to a snooping jerk who felt like the had the right to my private thoughts and machinations and 2. I didn't have the time to sit down with a journal every day. SO - I thought I'd try my hand at blogging and thinking out loud on screen via keyboard. I'm sure no one will ever read my meanderings but I KNOW it will help me make sense of my life, where I've been, where I'm going and where I want to wind up. Still, knowing that life has a tendency to be most uncooperative, I am starting out with the goal of writing for 30 minutes straight every time I sit down to my keyboard. No lofty goals or oppressive guilt here!

I'll start by telling you a bit about myself (because I'm sure I'll forget eventually)... I'm 40 years old and alternate between feeling 15 and 90. On days when I'm 15, my back doesn't hurt, my clothes fit the way I want them to and the radio plays all my favorite songs. On days when I'm 90... well, my back hurts like a MFer, my clothes make me feel frumpy, the radio plays lots of newfangled crap that I don't know the words to and traffic makes me angry. On my 15 days, I have to remind myself that I have stretch marks and the salesman at Buckle wants in my wallet and not my pants. On my 90 days, I want to stay home, drink wine all day and not shower.  Sigh... middle age can suck eggs sometimes.

I have two children and four step-children. Some days I want to punt any or all of them through the nearest black hole. Most days I like them all just fine...I definitely like them all better the older they get. The bunch includes a 21 year old girl (K) - cosmetology school graduate, kind of floundering around aimlessly, an 18 year old girl (Hollah) in her first year at university on scholarship working towards finding her own way as a high school science teacher, a set of 17 year old triplets who are juniors in high school - two hard working and hard studying girls (Miss Practical and The Dreamer) who talk nonstop about music and "getting out" and a hard working, really bright boy (Mr. JROTC) who dreams of joining the Navy, and last but not least - a 15 year old high school freshman (Dreamboat) who is a star defensive football player, star wrestler and brilliant student.

My husband (Big Daddy) is my rock and my soft spot. He loves me in spite of myself and likes me when I am decidedly unlikable. He is a saint and my extended family agrees that he should be canonized simply for putting up with my particular brand of crazy.

Big Daddy and I were transferred with his job to Utah from Alabama several years ago which caused all the teenagers to immediately jump ship. They waved and cried as we moved away from them and left them to live their own lives. It was the hardest thing I have EVER done. I wasn't READY for them to leave me so soon. Yes, I'd been raising them towards that goal their entire lives but I thought I had a few years left before it happened... In the end, they chose their own paths and I have to respect them for it. It's been hard but I honestly have to admit that I love the relationship I have with each of them now. My relationships with my stepchildren were rocky at best before we moved and now...I wouldn't change a second of it. I think the separation and distance has helped us all (including my own two children) appreciate and respect each other as individuals and to grow more patience within our family.

So that's me in a very basic nutshell. I have 5 minutes left so what else can I cram in here?

I love to read and chew through books like crappy bubble gum that loses it's flavor too soon. I am incredibly bored and underutilized at my job and am actively searching for a new one. I'd love a new CAREER but signs are not auspicious for a change any time soon. My husband and I have a 125 gallon salt water predator aquarium. It's an expensive hobby which lets us answer 'YES' when someone asks if we have pets but doesn't require boarding or obedience school or pee stains or long walks in the snow. Although admittedly, our porcupine puffer isn't very cuddly.

Anyway - my time is about up so I'll leave you with this. Forty Year Old Rule #57: Pee where you can, when you can. The next clean bathroom may be MILES away.