Minutia

I've not moved. I kind of want to, but every time I think of some super clever and unique name for a new blog, I check and find out it's not unique at all. And so here this poor, lonely neglected page sits... untended.

I still like my new job. Did I ever tell you guys what I do? I don't know if I did, and I'm too lazy to go back and read. I work in the marketing and communications department for a school district. Newsletters, course catalogs, social media, etc. I get to write some, edit a lot, and do graphic design. The first big community education catalog that I did won a statewide award. Neat, huh?

I'm doing the couch to 5k thing. I hate it. I hate running with a burning passion. But, I've been told that a certain amount of exercise is good for you.

Lucas got his white belt in Kung Fu last week.

Merry will be five next week.

I've fallen down the Pinterest rabbit hole. Such an intoxicating time suck.

I broke my left fuck you finger and it healed all crooked.

I got a juicer. Last night I made vegetable juice with beets and it looked like I had juiced a small rodent with all the blood red juice and discarded pulp.

I've had this song stuck in my head for nigh on a month now:



It almost makes running fun.

Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bad

I woke up bad today. Bad like my everyday makeup of tinted moisturizer and mascara looks like clown makeup on my bad face. Bad like my everyday work outfit of cords and a sweater looks like a garish costume on my bad self. My coffee was bad, the weather was bad, my attitude is bad.



So. I'm back.

The happy rush of my new job is past. I still like it, but it's slowed down and I'm no longer consumed with the marvel of going to a place every day with nice, supportive people who value me and my opinions, where I do something that I'm proud of and enjoy... Nothing to sneeze at, I know. But the old me is starting to come back. The one who would really rather stay in bed all day, hiding under my puffy comforter and re-watching all of Firefly on DVD than go to any job.

I finally got that chunk of money I'd been waiting for forever. I bought a new car. Brand new. Paid for it outright. And I love it. The rest of the money is in savings for now. And after I get new windows on my house, the balance will be responsibly stashed away into an IRA or something. But again, much to my surprise and chagrin, having a nice fat hunk of money squirreled away, waiting for me when I retire, hasn't solved all my woes of today.


Last week was the anniversary of my dad's death. Guh, talk about bummers. Christmas was tough without him this year too, ya know? And my birthday.

And that thing where I thought I had carpel tunnel syndrome in my hand, but turned out to be a pinched nerve in my back? That's back. And I think I need to get glasses.

I didn't make any resolutions this year, but maybe I should have. I feel aimless and irritable. And lucky you, you get to read all about it. All this bitching is just my way of saying that I've decided to blog again.

But there's this: This particular blog seems finished to me. I'm not sure why. I'm itching to start over. A new blog for a new me. Or whatever. Will I lose my meager following if I jump ship and set up house somewhere else? (Can I mix you a metaphor?)

39 and 364 days

Today is the last day of my 30s and it seems like I should commemorate that somehow. Do something essentially 30ish. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that would be. I'd kinda like to muster up a mid-life crisis for you, it would give me something to write about. Finally.

Alas, I'm pretty satisfied. I got nothing to prove.

Ask me again tomorrow. Maybe 40 will be filled with juicy blogging torment.

Checking in

At my old job I had tons of down time. Literally, metaphorically, spiritually.... Lots of time to blog. But now I've got this great new job, and I'm busy and happy. At the risk of sounding like I've been recently brainwashed, at this new job, I don't want to do anything but work while I'm at work. I like it that much. And I used to always think people were lying when they said stuff like that.

So, a synopsis of the past month:
I got this new job, Eric surprised me with a trip for my upcoming big birthday-that-contains-a-zero. We're going to Hilton Head. I haven't been on a real vacation for like, seven years. My ex got married last week, it was super awesome to see the pictures all over Facebook. My mom sold her house in Wisconsin and is looking for places here. I can't wait to exploit her for babysitting. The end.

Four-year-olds get it.

If you ask Meredith how our dog, Lincoln, died, she will tell you that he ate a bee.
(He died from a tumor in his spleen.)

If you ask her how her grampa died, she will tell you that aliens came down in a space ship and scared him to death.
(He had a heart attack.)

I would like to be able to believe how she believes.

Big News

I finally got a new job. It's with the school district, so the benefits are great and the pay is bad, and I'm super excited because I get to be all organizey and creative and I will probably even get to write some.

Pie

So. That pie in the face from the universe? Yeah.

When I got to work that day and checked in on all my stalking social media sites, there was a Facebook post from an old high school friend about a job at his company. I jumped on it. At first it seemed like it was going to be the solution to all my problems, but now it seems to have fizzled out. F-word.

But something life-changing did happen to me that day. Have you heard about Levi's and how they have this new "Curve ID" system with their jeans for people like me, who have smallish waists and biggish bums whose jeans always gap at the waist, or just plain slide off?  I was curious, if a bit skeptical, so I went to the Levi's store at the Mall of America that night to try some on. And you guys, these jeans are my butt's holy grail. The "bold curve" fits my waist and my hips. And they come in different inseams too. So they fit my waist and my hips and my short legs! I swear to Garp, this has never happened before.

So yeah. My life changed on that day.  I now own two pairs of jeans that fit me. Not quite the change I was hoping for, but better than a sharp stick in the eye.

All those other things? I still don't know.

The Message

I haven't been around here much lately. Well, I've been here, but my mind has been elsewhere. (I love that word: elsewhere. It's right up there with nevertheless. ) Worrying about Stella and Kelly, getting the kids ready for school, job hunting and feeling sorry for myself seem to be occupying all my brain space these days. I've been in a funk. Anxious about finding a job before my health benefits run out, wondering where to put the money I'm going to get soon, sure I'm going to make the wrong decision. My brain's tied up in knots.

So this morning, I dropped the kids off at their dad's for the weekend and as I was driving away this song was playing on the radio.


This is one of those songs that, when you hear it by chance, you're supposed to stop and look around you and see what kind of message the universe is sending you. And pay attention. And then act.

So I'm sitting at the light on a ridge looking out over the valley - at Valleyfair, it always seems like Brigadoon on foggy mornings like this, an amusement park, shrouded in mist, appears before you from another world - and the kind of car that I've been thinking about buying with some of the money turns in toward me from the left. Is this what the universe is trying to tell me? I should go ahead and buy this car? It's got all wheel drive and would be safer in the winter, and the automatic transmission would make my torturous daily commute a little less painful. (What kind of an idiot buys a stick shift car when they spend two hours a day in stop and go traffic on a four lane highway? This kind, right here.)

Or maybe I'm being given a sign that one of the jobs I applied for this week is going to work out. Maybe I'll get the call today. So I'm sticking with that thought as the light turns green and I pull out onto Flying Cloud Drive, which would be such a nice name for a road if I didn't have to drive on it so early every morning, when a garbage truck roars past and cuts me off. I pull into the other lane, still meditating on what message I'm being sent.

Suddenly, a piece of garbage flies off the top of the truck and whirls toward me. I flinch, it's round and metallic - am I about to be beheaded by a hurling hub cap? No time to react, I hold my breath, watching as it whips in the wind and shoots straight for my windshield - SPLAT. It is a pie tin. Pie residue spatters across my car and I realize as I exhale and turn on the wipers that the universe just got my attention and then threw a pie in my face.

For Stella

I'm not really religious. At all. But my friends just had a baby, born with a heart defect and in critical condition. And there's nothing I can do, but I feel like I need to do something, so I pray. I don't know if I'm praying to God, or rather, begging the universe to just this once not let the worst happen.

Please let Stella be OK.

Books

Mom retired from teaching this year and is putting her house on the market so there's been a major purge of books from her house: kid books and grown up books. Lucky us. Everything from Plato to Alice Hoffman. It's like a bookstore barfed on my stairs.

I've got a hot date with some bookshelves this weekend.