Stunned

Since I posted twice separately the day before and I didn't want to be responsible for all two of my readers overdosing, I didn't post yesterday. I'm back today though and had a big surprise waiting for me on my blog. One of the real bloggers that I follow, actually left a comment on my last post about leaving a mark on the world that was inspired by her blog. I was so stoked!! It gave me a taste of how addicting it must be for those real bloggers to watch their following grow. I can't figure out how she knew I did it because you see, I'm not a real blogger. Because if I was, I would KNOW how she knew. I suspect that it has something to do with the hyperlink to her blog that I included in my posting but I don't know and it's really bugging me because I so want to know.

And no, I'm not going to be all "junior high-ish" and ask her because that's just way too dorky. I may be a lot of things but I'm not a dork. Dorks don't insert the word "pussy" in normal conversations just to horrify their husbands and they certainly don't have a very large bottle of vodka in their freezer. Not naming names or anything, I'm just saying. With all that being said, if Mama Mary does happen to read this, would she mind letting me know how she knew? Because the way my mind works, this curiosity will torture my mind for an indeterminately long time. Thanks. PS. If it's such an easy answer that even my 4 year old would know it, please make it sound more difficult than it actually is so I don't feel like more of an idiot than I already feel. Thanks.

As I peck away on this keyboard, I am in the last hours of my last sizable "off the grid" for awhile. I'm outside on the patio with Fuzzy on my lap, feeling the breeze, hearing my windchimes, and watching this kick-ass lizard dig around on the embankment in front of me. The crows are carrying on about something as they always do though today there seems to be quite a bruhaha taking place. Yet, to me, it's quiet. When I do get time to myself at home, I like it quiet. I want to hear the sounds of things so minor and small that I would never even notice them on a regular day. These are the sounds of all the little things in the day that I'm too busy to notice let alone stop and listen. They are the sounds of life outside of my little world and it's nice to stop, listen, and realize how thankful I am to be alive to hear them.

Seven Things About Me

Diana from The Adventures of A Write-At-Home Mom honored me with a surprise nomination for the Versatile Blogger award, which states that I must disclose seven random nuggets about myself and then nominate five other bloggers who I enjoy following. Let the nuggets begin!

1. I live in a house of animals who have serious mental issues and are conspiring to drive me insane. No, I'm not the "cat lady" but I do have two cats and a conure (medium parrot). One of the cats came with the husband, the parrot came with me, and then we adopted the second cat - a true blended family to be sure. The parrot imitates everything at the top of his lungs and likes nothing more than to laugh loudly at any funny tv show you have on, to the point that you can't hear the dialogue. Yeah, it's real funny. One of the cats wants to be fed by 4am every day and if he isn't, he expresses his displeasure but leaving a "present" from his backend on the carpet for me. Not to be outdone, the other cat appears to have explosive diarrhea once a day on the carpet when she gets stressed so I'll be adding Prozac to her daily RX protocol. If that's not enough to drive me insane, it's enough to make me wonder if maybe I'm already insane, which is a distinct possibility.

2. I am a black belt in taekwondo with experience in karate, krav maga, and muay thai. There's two parts to martial arts - the forms (or katas) and the sparring/fighting aspect. It should be no surprise to anyone who knows me that I detested forms but loved sparring. The more violence the better. As part of my black belt test, I had to break three 1-inch concrete slabs stacked on top of each other with my bare hand. I was the first female to take the test at the dojo and I had to petition the sensei to be able to do this breaking because he was old school and thought only men should break three slabs; women should only break one. As it turned out, there were five men and me testing that day - only three of the guys and me successfully broke all three slabs.

3. Another nugget of craziness related to martial arts is that while practicing breaking concrete slabs for a demonstration, I injured my right hand so badly that the ER put it in a cast. Keep in mind, I was in my mid-20s, right-handed and working in a professional career. But I was also the only female black belt in the dojo and I wanted to serve as inspiration for all the girls so the day of the demonstration, I broke the concrete slabs with my left hand. Yes, I was crazy even back then.

4. Last year was the second most terrible year in my life (so far). Not only did I lose my 39 year old best friend to pancreatic cancer, many times I felt like I was losing my mind to grief and anger, losing my grip on reality as I struggled to provide a happy, normal environment for my 4 year old, and losing my marriage due to my husband being 3500 miles away and unable/unwilling to be there emotionally and physically for me. Yet myself, my girl, and my marriage made it through and learned a lot of lessons along the way. That being said, if that was my second worst year, can you even imagine what my first must have been like?!

5. I have an aversion to talking to people on the phone. I put off phone calls like it's having teeth pulled. If it's a call to a close friend where I know it'll be a fun or short convo, then I don't have a problem. But if it's someone I don't know or with whom I'm not particularly comfortable with, I'll put it off as long as possible until putting it off starts aggravating me more than just making the damn call. I blame this completely on my mother who cannot have a phone call last shorter than 20 minutes no matter what the topic, purpose, situation, time of day, or excuses. She requires at least 60 minutes at a time and usually 58 minutes of it is her talking. This is why I call her once a week while I'm on the treadmill and as my annoyance increases so does the speed and incline of that treadmill. Ironically, I get my best cardio workouts on those days.

6. Ten years ago, my therapist at the time, who is now a great friend, told me that I was "a man trapped in a women's body". It has been one of the greatest explanations of me I've ever heard because it is spot-on and explains many of my oddities, struggles, and dichotomies.

7. Though I'm not a creative or vindictive person by nature, if you truly piss me off, I will come up with the most unique, out-of-this-world ideas for exacting my revenge. Take for instance three individuals who did everything they could to undermine me all the while acting as though they were being helpful. After a year of this bullshit, I'd had it and after some research on the internet, I sent each of them a gift wrapped, untraceable package of horse shit and dog shit. Unfortunately, this was not too long after 9/11 so they were deemed to be suspicious packages and they didn't get to actually open them. That's okay, 'cause the bomb squad blew those suckers in the middle of the downtown street which actually made me laugh harder than if they had opened the damn things. Here's a newsflash: you never want to piss off a resourceful woman.

After reading this over, I guess I can see why many of my friends and husband consider me feisty. Sometimes it just takes some reminiscing to remember that it's still there, it just comes out differently now. And with that concluding my seven nuggets of info on me, I hereby nominate the following five bloggers (three are local San Diegans, I believe) to this worthy Versatile Blogger award and look forward to their random disclosures:

Steve at Single Steve

Stefanie at Ooph Because Life Sometimes Takes Your Breath Away

Mariel and Jessica at Or So She Says

Carolyn at The Uncontrolled Rantings of a 40 Something Female

Maria at Mommy Melee

Waking Up

Why a non-morning person blogs in the morning makes no sense to me. I've been up for 2 hours now and I'm still rubbing my eyes trying to wake up. This is because I didn't get to wake up at a leisurely pace. The blasted neighbors up the hill put that dog out on the patio before 7am and it started barking its head off. Up I got to close the patio door, back to bed. Dozed off again to be awoken by crying coming from I.'s room. Jump out of bed, pulling my pjs on to discover that baby bear took a somersault out of the bed and is now unreachable. And all that has led to my grogginess and struggle to wake up.

I can't blog during the day 'cause I'm too busy doing. I've already tried blogging at the end of the day and failed. I don't have enough words leftover at the end of the day. So that's how I've arrived at blogging in the morning. It's still very challenging with I. clammoring all around me, "Mommy look at me." "Mommy can you get me this?" "Mommy I'm done with poops. Come wipe me!" You get the idea. Carrying a train of thought for longer than 2 seconds can be more challenging than any job I had in the outside world. You wanted to think about something? You just close your office door, put the phone to voicemail and voila - time to think in peace. My office these days is in the form of the toliet room and even then, as soon as the door closes, chances are there will be immediate knocking, questions, crying etc.

But I'll take my new "office" anyday of the week over that fancy office I used to work in. At least I'm dealing with a 4 year old who acts like a 4 year old as opposed to a 30 year old who acts like a 4 year old. Off I go...

Future Hope

I read the blogs of the "professionals" and of friends and I'm always struck by how their posts contain teachable topics and/or great skills, at least for the most part. I enjoy how they inspire me to think more deeply or to feel less alone with the struggles of being a momma. However, inevitably, I finish reading and think to myself, "My blog doesn't really contribute anything to anyone's life." I have to admit, I feel a little guilty about that.

Then I remind myself that there are different seasons to life, as I well know from my own past. For the past 3 years, the season has been characterized by raising a strong willed, feisty daughter basically on my own due to V.'s anti-family life job. It also was greatly overshadowed by Mark's cancer diagnosis and death and me trying to deal with that. So, it's been a tough season of life. Of course, lots of good memories and fun times too but overall, it's been a lot to handle.

My blog, especially lately, has served as an important way to get those swirling (yes, again with the swirling) thoughts and emotions out of my brain and body. Without V. here, there's really no one on a daily basis to talk those things out in between therapist appointments. So I use my blog to keep things rotating out of my mind and minimize the buildup which is NEVER a good thing. I am consistently trying to avoid the "straw that broke the camel's back" scenario that us women tend to struggle with. We handle and handle until we stop handling and God help the next person who irritates us or doesn't step in to help the way we imagine they should. You know what I mean.

So, right now my blog does serve a purpose. In this season of my life, its benefit is for me solely. Hopefully I'll move into another season where there's less swirling and more contemplative thinking. It's hard to be contemplative with a 4 year old, dancing next to you, screaming "Watch me Mommy! Watch me Mommy!" (like she is right now). It's a miracle I can write anything at all!

Twitter Vs. Epiphany

Like most of my postings, I'm starting this one before giving it a title. It just seems like most of my post titles evolve as I'm writing them. And yes, I've been negligent in my blogging. Part of it is that V. was home for a whole 2 weeks and I was saving my words and thoughts for him - a sort of upload to his brain, as opposed to the blog, while he was still here. But now, yet again he's gone probably for 5 weeks this time...

The other thing that I realized is interfering with my postings is this perceived need to have some sort of epiphany in order to blog. I really don't want my blog to turn into some sort of a Twitter kind of thing - any random thought entering my brain does not need to be broadcast to the world. However, it shouldn't require an epiphany in order to blog. So, I need to find a happy medium between Twitter and epiphanies.