Finding Blessings In the Bullshit

4 Comments / Daily Dose /

A year ago, I was just at the beginning of what I thought was going to be my year. The year I blogged every single day. The year that I took time off of work. The year that I stopped working 12, 14, 16 hours a day and every weekend and holiday. The year that I did things differently.

And it was. I did great. I wrote every day, even if it wasn’t always something good. I took days off. I took breaks from work during the day. I even made time for my altered book and art journaling.

And then I didn’t.

It was back to long work days. No days off. No breaks during the day. Heck, I even worked every day while Johnny Mac Pippin was here this summer. Even when I’ve taken time off, it seems like I’ve just taken time off to deal with crap that was more bullshit than anything else. Folding laundry on your lunch break is bullshit no matter how you look at it. Running errands and racing right back to work is bullshit, too.

There are days when it seems like it’s all bullshit, ya know? I love my job. I love the people I work with. I love my family. I love my puppies. But and yes there’s a but — there are days when I wake up and think “what crap am I going to have to deal with today?” When that happens for too many days in a row, I know it’s time to shake things up and just stop focusing on all of the bullshit and look for the blessings.

Which is why Nablo came around at the right time. And so did 28 Days of Celebrating Thanks.

Yesterday, I was pumped for both. Motivation to get my life back on track and focus on the good things and not all of the problems and headaches. I was even more pumped after hearing from my daughter and texting with my former mother in law about a horrible situation happening within their family (family that’s still very much my family, in so many ways.) There’s nothing like a horrible, no good, horrendous thing to help you get perspective, ya know?

Then I woke up this morning and looked at my calendar and saw that there actually wasn’t a 30 minute break for me when I could sit down and write. Where I could sit down and think about all of the blessings in my life. I almost gave up on the whole idea and just said screw it all. Seriously. I was close. Very close.

But, that’s not who I am. That’s not the way I want my life to be. So here I am at 7pm, chuckling at JMP’s mom who can’t make up her mind about a new car seat. And I’m writing about the bullshit but at the same time thinking about blessings. I’m lucky. I can do that. As TW races through the house chasing Buster because he has once again stolen (and probably half eaten) something he wasn’t supposed to have… as she locks him into his crate for a time out… as the other two dogs lay here on the floor of the office so they don’t harass him further or get into trouble of their own… as I wonder how many more emails have landed in my inbox in the last hour… and how many pieces of spam I’ll find when I stop writing this… and hell, the laundry never got folded on my break today because I went to the pharmacy (again) on my break… as the puppy somehow escapes from his crate, opens the baby gate and makes his way into the office to wreak more havoc (this time on the prairie dogs)… as I wonder about all of the fires to be put out tonight and tomorrow and next week and forever… I know that I’m lucky.

Because I do love my job. I love the blogging community that I’m a part of. I love these crazy ridiculous troublesome dogs. And the kids. And TW. I love my life, so full of bullshit and mayhem and I am going to take some time every day to enjoy it. Every second of it. Even the parts that feel like bullshit.

Now excuse me while I go retrieve something from Buster that I’m very sure he should not have.

Day one — it’s done. That’s a blessing.

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BUSTERRRRRRRR!

3 Comments / Animal Issues, Daily Dose, Family Funk, Pets /

We’re doing a lot of BUSTERRRRRRRRRRR yelling around here. This puppy gets into more than Skeeter ever dreamed of getting into.

He’s a climber.

He’s also a thief.

He does chew things, certainly, but mostly he steals things and runs. Here’s a list of the things he has stolen recently.

– A plastic watering jug (that was on a shelf about chest high).
– Old photos of TW’s mom and siblings as children.
– TW’s iPhone.
– Shoes off of my feet (while I was trying to put them on) and slippers off of TW’s feet while she was walking.
– A Staples bag containing three reams of printer paper (Buster is also STRONG)
– Library books from the bedside table, from the bed, from the library cart and from the bag hanging on the library cart.
– 3 cans of coke.
– An electric screwdriver.
– Coupons from my desk and from my coupon storage ottoman thingy.
– Tissue paper, rubber stamps, and markers from my art desk.
– A bag of prairie dog hay.

As I typed this, he tried to steal the dustpan (it’s one of those that has the stand up pole thingy so you don’t have to bend over to sweep stuff into it) and a broom. He couldn’t get either of those through the door way but he tried, boy did he try.

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The Yonahlassee Riding Camp For Girls

2013, Books in Bed, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

I couldn’t really decide whether I liked The Yonahlossee Riding Camp For Girls. In the end, I decided I did because the writing was pretty. I’m not sure I liked the STORY very much at all though.

Well parts of it I did, parts of it I didn’t like at all. The biggest problem was that I didn’t really like any of the major characters. It’s hard to love a book when you don’t love SOMEONE in it, ya know? I think I loved the places more than the people… which makes sense, really, when you read the book. A lot of the characters loved places more than people, too.

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All The Graphic Novels — OK Not All Of Them, Just Seven

2013, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Young Adult /

I didn’t manage to read all of the graphic novels from the Cybils shortlist on Sunday like I’d planned but I did finish a bunch of them on Monday and Tuesday. Here’s what I thought about seven of them:

Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller — I liked it. I wasn’t sure at the beginning. The first couple of pages were dark and confusing but once I settled into the art, and the jumping between Annie’s life and Annie’s life with Helen, it was good. Very good.

Hilda and the Midnight Giant was cute. I like Hilda and her mom.

Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Big Bad Ironclad was pretty good. I grew up with a history nut for a dad so I have a fondness for these kinds of stories. Humor was nicely added to help make the story less dry than history often is made to be.

Little White Duck: A Childhood in China was super interesting. I didn’t expect to like this one as much as I did.

Friends with Boys was probably my favorite of this round of graphic novels. (What’s with all of the memoirs on the list this time?) Homeschool to High School, teen angst, a ghost. It’s all pretty excellent. The drawings were good, too.

Marathon should have been good. Instead, I couldn’t even finish (I tried though. I tried hard.) The drawings should haven’t helped the difficult to follow story but they just made things worse.

Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White was my second favorite of the batch. I liked the art. I liked the story. Hispanic family in Alabama during the 60s? Not white but also not black? Tough situation and super interesting.

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I Quit You, Candy Crush! No, Really. I Did

3 Comments / Community Chest, Daily Dose, Personality /

Yep. I’ve pretty much quit Candy Crush. I log in every couple of days just to send people things they have asked for and I might play a couple of rounds but usually, I don’t even do that.

Considering how addicted I was to Candy Crush, it’s a little surprising that I quit so cold turkey.

Or maybe it’s not.

I reached a level that I could not beat. Not after game after game after game and hour after hour of trying. I didn’t even come close. That made it not fun anymore and just very frustrating and annoying. I don’t really enjoy being frustrated and annoyed, I have enough of that in my every day life — I don’t need it from a stupid game.

Even better — I’ve deleted the game from my iPhone. That means I’ve really quit Candy Crush because I’ve never played much on my laptop via Facebook (my computer doesn’t like it.) I’ll still log in and send y’all stuff, sometimes. I might not be addicted any longer, but I know a lot of you still are.

Have fun — I hope you never get stuck the way I got stuck.

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Dexter’s Final Cut

1 Comment / 2013, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Don't Read This, Fiction /

Sigh. I’m disappointed in Dexter’s Final Cut. So disappointed. I get that Dexter wasn’t a good guy, even though most of us grew to really love him. But… this. This was too much. It’s ok to kill off the Dexter series, it’s not ok to fuck with the people who’ve read your books for all of these years and have come to appreciate the characters and the storytelling.

It’s not OK at all. If you’ve ready all of the other books, don’t read this one. 🙁

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Punted

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

Well hell. Most of my big plans for my day without TW didn’t happen.

I decided it was dumb to make (non) poison caramel apple bites when I could buy six caramel apples for $1.79. So I bought them instead. Which was good since I didn’t seem able to get much of anything else done today, there’s have been no time to make them even if I’d wanted to.

Don’t get me wrong, I did a great many things — I grocery shopped (at 5 stores), I folded laundry (and put it away), I did dishes (several times), I cleaned up after puppies (more times than I can remember.) I watched six episodes of Dawson’s Creek and I did work on JMP’s stocking.

I’ve read about 3 pages of one graphic novel, gah. And the house looks like I never cleaned up after the puppies a single time. Buster… is very puppy-like and is into EVERYTHING ALL OF THE TIME. Gah.

I also tried to take a nap (twice) but the damn bed is freezing without TW and the puppies did nothing to keep me warm so my naps were pretty sleepless which means I’m exhausted and it’s only 8:43.

I’ve done quite a lot of work, which is good since my tomorrow will be nuts with driving of all of the people to all of the places but that’s ok, TW will be HOME tomorrow and she can take over puppy duty and I can relax with my graphic novels then.

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