The odd thing about not . . . → Read More: My sisters say I don’t blog enough]]> And they’re totally right.  I told them to come clean my house so I would have time to actually do something else outside of work, but all I got were wrinkled noses and shaking heads on that one.  But, I’m trying to write a blog anyway.  YOU’RE WELCOME, SISTERS.

The odd thing about not writing much is that I don’t know where to pick up.  Do I go through and recap everything, like how cute Claire looked as a little witch on Halloween and how much she is loving preschool and regale you with tales of my quirky coworkers?  Or do I just pretend that I’ve been narrating all along and act like this bloggy and I are old friends?

I was reflecting today on what a rollercoaster ride this parenting thing is (SHOCKER, I know) and all the highs and lows we’ve been through recently with our offspring.  A few weeks ago she went on an all out poop strike, even going so far as to make itty-bitty signs and to form a picket line outside the bathroom.  (Ok, not really.  Instead there was lots of screaming and squirming.)  I was certain that we’d screwed her up and made her afraid somehow.  But after much trial and error and patience and Googling and hand-wringing and eventually a call to the pediatrician we have it mostly figured out.  Had I known ten years ago that someday my entire day’s happiness would be based on a little person pooping I would’ve been mighty depressed indeed.

So then after the high of thinking “hooray, we fixed our kid!” I was listening to her play today and realized that most of what she was saying revolved around her putting her toys in time-out and expressing her extreme displeasure with how naughty they were being.  And then whoosh, down the hill I went again on that roller-coaster realizing that THIS is what she’s picked up from us as parents?  Well, isn’t that lovely!  But then I thought about it some more and realized that this is probably normal, I think I remember doing the same thing as a kid.  And then the more I thought about it I realized, HEY, we aren’t such bad parents after all!  Because as she put her toys in time-out instead of saying awful things and calling her toys names and stuff, she was saying things like “I am not happy about this” in her most stern manner.  And that’s awesome!  Because that means we are doing something right by not using abusive language!  She learned that nice language from us!  I’ll have to remember to high-five my husband over that one before bed tonight.  It’s the little victories, people.

Anyway, life is good lately.  Busy and hectic and getting more busy and hectic it seems, but I’ve realized lately how very fortunate we are to be surrounded by truly wonderful people.  We have the most amazing family, friends, and neighbors, that I really can’t complain about anything.  And I’m not just saying that because I know my sisters are reading this.

By the way sisters, the offer for you to clean my house in exchange for blog posts is still on the table.  Babysitting is also accepted payment for blogging.  I’m pretty sure we can come to an agreement here.

*Tap tap*

I believe this is what is called a weblog, yes?  You…type?  And it goes out to the…Internets?  It’s been so long I’m a bit rusty on how all this works.

Dear bloggy friends, I have not forgotten you.  I’ve just been blasted busy.  Yes, really.  Busy and exhausted.  I . . . → Read More: Ahem…]]> Uh…this thing on?

*Tap tap*

I believe this is what is called a weblog, yes?  You…type?  And it goes out to the…Internets?  It’s been so long I’m a bit rusty on how all this works.

Dear bloggy friends, I have not forgotten you.  I’ve just been blasted busy.  Yes, really.  Busy and exhausted.  I switched jobs again at the end of June, which has been a wonderful and glorious thing.  This new job has like, people!  Who talk to me!  And a break room with cookies and popcorn!  And a giant panda pinata that sits at our receptionist desk and is rigged up to talk!  I’m not even kidding about that last one.  It has been a good, nay, a wonderful change.

BUT, here is the question I am left pondering this summer:

How does one…

Work 40 hours a week

Do laundry, and fold all that darned laundry

Scrub the bathroom on a somewhat regular basis

Play at the park with the daughter

Hold Family Home Evening

Plan and execute a birthday party

Prepare healthy lunches in advance to take to work

Organize the closets so they don’t one day bury you alive

Keep your car inspected, registered, clean, full of gas, and with air actually in the tires to boot

Pull weeds

Practice THE ORGAN for church during the week (and recover from the ensuing stroke every other Sunday)

Exercise regularly and count calories

Constantly work to arrange babysitters for this, that, and the other without making all your family and neighbors hate you

Go on dates with the husband now and then to make him feel special, and sometimes even put on lipstick or do your hair to look pretty

Enjoy quality time in the mountains

Scrub stains out of your carpet (a hopeless task…)

Keep fresh batteries in the smoke detectors so they don’t chirp at you at 4:00 AM

Hang out with extended family and be a decent daughter, sister, aunt, daughter-in-law, etc.

Commute an hour each day

Research and clip grocery coupons in desperate effort to not go broke

Help husband with homework

Scrapbook the precious moments of your child’s life

Catch up with girlfriends as to preserve valuable friendships

Take meals to neighbors in need

Field a million questions about your reproductive goals

Read books to the little one

Recycle

Think of ways to be creative and valuable at work

Keep a blog or two updated

Etc., etc., etc.

So, Internet.  HOW????  How does a single person do this and more?  Is this what is called “being an adult?”  I’m… pooped.

So blog buddies, can we be friends again?  I’m sorry for being neglectful.  I’ve just felt a little busy, is all.  Love you!

While I realize I’ve been light in the posting department lately, I wanted to give a little shout out to dads.

Dads are awesome aren’t they?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, moms are awesome too.  But I’m a firm believer that having . . . → Read More: Fathers]]> A happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there yesterday!

While I realize I’ve been light in the posting department lately, I wanted to give a little shout out to dads.

Dads are awesome aren’t they?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, moms are awesome too.  But I’m a firm believer that having a mom AND a dad is just good as gravy.  The yin and the yang, you know?

Without a dad, who would fix your bike or teach you how to swing a baseball bat?  Who would take you on daddy-daughter dates to the mountains or to get hamburgers? Who would help you pick out your first car and stay up late to help you with your algebra?  Who would still come over after you’ve moved out to build shelves, assemble tables, lay sod, and make sure your carbon monoxide detector was plugged in?  Who would teach you that quality is often better than quantity or that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Who would tell you all the time how beautiful you were, or teach you that you can do ANYTHING you want in life?

My dad did all those things, and continues to.  Seriously, I was blessed with the best parents.

And you know how when you were a little girl you used to imagine your husband and you’d hope that he would be a kick-A dad?

Turns out, my baby-daddy is better than I could’ve even imagined.

Claire ADORES him, and deservedly so.  She thinks I’m ok most the time, but daddy?  Daddy is the coolest person walking planet earth.

I’m so glad my little girl has a dad who plays with her, cuddles her, sings to her, listens to her, cooks for her, works for her, and loves her endlessly.

He’s pretty cute too.  I’m glad we get to keep him.

The end.

Ok, fine, that is a lame excuse for a post.  But yes, I do have writer’s block, in a way.  In reality, I write stuff all the time… in my head.  But lately it never seems to flow out through my fingertips and onto my keyboard.  Why is that?  . . . → Read More: Writer’s block]]> I haz it.

The end.

Ok, fine, that is a lame excuse for a post.  But yes, I do have writer’s block, in a way.  In reality, I write stuff all the time… in my head.  But lately it never seems to flow out through my fingertips and onto my keyboard.  Why is that?  I feel like I do a lot of thinking.  I have plenty of time to kill during my long commutes to and from work, where in the past I’ve had plenty of ideas and theories flutter through my brain.

However, these days I feel a little brain dead, for lack of a better phrase.  My head feels cloudy and blank much of the time.  Part of me wonders if it is because of my job, which is astonishingly boring and completely mind-numbing quite frequently.  I sit in a windowless office all day, with very little contact with other humans.  I talk with people over the phone for a small portion of each day, but otherwise it is all through email and chat.  My coworkers and I have very little interaction.  Not much is required for business, and any sort of social interaction with them is extremely rare.  For one, they are in love with their computers and video games and I am not.  Secondly, I am female and they are not, which makes me foreign and perhaps scary?

The way our office is set up is not really conducive to casual walk-by conversations.  If I were to want to interact with my coworkers I would have to walk down the hall and hang a left to their little den that I never have reason to visit, only to plop myself down and say “hey guys, what’s up?”.  That would end up being very uncomfortable because one would likely stare at me awkwardly but not say anything, the other would make some weird joke and then laugh loudly and nervously, the third one would say “YO!” loudly and then stick his earbuds back in, and the fourth would ask me if I was in love with my Mac yet and then we’d be out of conversation topics.  Sadly, that is an exact scenario of any socialization attempts I would make.

So, instead I sit in my windowless office which I am fairly certain is slowly but surely killing my brain cells.  I honestly feel like I am in a mental fog during most the day, and then finally when I find myself at home it is like my world comes alive again.  I’ve tried everything to make the long office days more bearable- I listen to music, I do squats, calf raises, lunges, jumping jacks, run in place… all sorts of crazy things to get the blood flowing back to my brain. (I’m always terrified that a coworker will walk past as I’m doing one of these activities, further solidifying in their mind how odd the new girl is).  I used to do push-ups before my hand/wrist went all screwy, but that is a post for a different day.  If it weren’t for my dear friend on chat, also working her life away at another company, I’d go insane.  Despite my best efforts though, I feel like this brain deadness is beginning to seep into other areas of my life and that I’m perpetually walking around simply trying to focus on what is before me at the moment and remember the important things required for functioning.  It is strange and frustrating and I’m not quite sure what to make of it yet, but that is my long explanation for the very limited posting these days.

Also, I’ve found myself having a bit of an identity crisis, maybe?  Most of the women in my part of the world are full-time stay-at-home moms or only work part-time.  Obviously, at this point in my life I am not one of them, although I hope to be in the not-too-distant future.  However, I have a hard time figuring out where I fit in as a working mother.  I am not working in a “career” that I love and find challenging but rewarding.  Again, maybe someday I’ll find a more rewarding way to bring in some money.  As a result, I kind of feel like a…misfit.  I’m not like the ladies in my neighborhood, I’m not like the men at my workplace, so who am I and where do I fit within the social fabric of my life?

I’ve found that in my social confusion over the last several weeks that the best thing for me to do is simply walk away from it, to just focus on me and my family and be happy with that.  I think one of the dangers of this wonder that is the Internet is that we are entirely too connected.  It is far too easy to surf blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and who knows what else and see what everyone else is doing and then wonder who and what you identify with and if perhaps there is something wrong with you?  There are the blogs from the cute little SAHM’s who modge-podge everything and make sure there are scalloped edges and tastefully shabby ribbons and damask fabric on everything they touch, and that certainly isn’t me.  Then there are the working mothers who agonize over the work-life balance like I do, but they are lawyers and advertising execs and intensive care nurses and such.  Not lowly sales reps sitting in cave-like offices, waiting for the day they can feel alive and worthwhile again.

Because the Internet is my lifeline during my long, coma-like hours in the office I spend a fair amount of time “connected” to others to a degree.  I finally realized that while I wasn’t intentionally comparing myself to all these other people, I was being bogged down by worrying about if I was “right” or “wrong” compared to these women I had never even met!  I really feel that in our society today we’re all so hyper-connected to others through social media that we begin to lose touch with the most important person: ourselves.

I don’t have a smartphone, and honestly I never really want to.  I see no reason to have that much information and connectivity with me at all times.  I have found it refreshing to step away from the computer and just sit and think.  To reflect on my life, my family, my strengths and weaknesses, my relationships, what I’ve done well, what I can do better.  Maybe our great historical figures were so noble because they had so much darn time to reflect on things, you know?  They weren’t constantly trying to come up with witty 140-character phrases or Facebook stalk their ex.  Instead, they reflected on who they were and mastered their inherit weak points in their character.

So I guess what I’m saying, in a very round-about sort of way, is that over the last few weeks I’ve found it helpful to untangle myself from the Internet a bit, including this blog.  I need to be a better and stronger person who is comfortable in my own skin.  I’m not giving this blog up; I like writing.  Just sometimes good writing ebbs and flows and right now it is just not flowing as I would like it to.  And in this space I don’t want to blog about nonsense that is neither funny, nor helpful, nor inspiring, nor profound, nor creative, nor meaningful or anything else of value.

Well, would you look at that- my writers block has turned into almost 1,300 words!  I guess the advice to just sit down and start writing does work.  Either way, I do plan to continue to write on this little bloggy as I do get great enjoyment from it and based on the word-vomit above it seems to help me organize some of the thoughts rattling around in my brain.  See you again sooner rather than later…hopefully…

I’ve been summoned for jury duty.

I realize a fair trial where you are judged by your peers is one of the privileges of living in a free and democratic society, and that it is my civic duty to participate, but who has . . . → Read More: I suppose some would call it a privilege…]]> The other day I got that dreaded letter in the mail.

I’ve been summoned for jury duty.

I realize a fair trial where you are judged by your peers is one of the privileges of living in a free and democratic society, and that it is my civic duty to participate, but who has time for this?  In fact, in the letter they told me jury selection itself can take several hours and it is “recommended I bring a book to read to help pass the time.”  (Actually, come to think of it, that doesn’t sound so bad…)

I’m thinking of pulling a Liz Lemon to get out of this one.  They’d let me off the hook for sure, don’t you think?