Wednesday Jon surprised me at my office with these:
Today while we were shopping for TheKid’s bike we found one I really liked but I told him I don’t really NEED one right now and we left it there. When I got home from grocery shopping, he surprised me with this:
Yep. The pretty pink bike that I really liked. He went back and got it while I was out. Spoiled much? 
1. Approach the first day of middle school nonchalantly. Saunter out alone into the big scary world to walk the one mile route for the first time, and barely glance back
2. Call upon arrival to school with a distracted “I’m here. I’ll call you after school.” and hang up on her.
3. Call AFTER school and tell her “I’m lost on campus. I don’t know how to get home.” Do this calmly with complete faith that she can talk you through it.
4. Blithely follow her directions, unaware of her mounting panic that her baby is one bad direction away from walking down a busy highway instead of a relatively safe neighborhood street and she has NO sense of direction.
5. Continue chatting about your teachers and day while she sits shaking until she hears you say “Oh there’s the tennis courts. I know where I am.”
6. Then just as she relaxes, casually mention “I was too scared to sit with anyone at lunch today. They all had friends or looked like troublemakers and I don’t want to be seen as a trouble maker here.”
7. Ignore that sound. It’s just her heart breaking.
* Can’t wait to see the google searches on this one…
I sat outside this evening under our massive lilac bush (really more of a tree) and watched Jon work on my car. It was quite hot. HE was quite hot being all mechanical – the temperature outside was perfect. Of course I happen to enjoy watching him…never tire of it actually. Until recently we didn’t have the luxury of touch. We could only communicate via webcam & phone. Now we are able to hug each other after work or cuddle after dinner and it’s marvelous but I still very much enjoy just sitting back and soaking in him, his mannerisms and his expressions. Hotness.
I’m trying to figure out how to pull off everything right now. (Seque? Huh?) I want to be the perfect “housewife” and perfect mother and perfect employee and my ideal self. And I KNOW it’s not possible to be perfect at everything all the time or even some things most of the time. But that doesn’t stop me from getting very frustrated when the green beans are barely edible (like tonight) or I consider how far away from healthy habits I’ve gotten or when I realize school starts Monday and I haven’t bought school clothes yet or or or…. So really the only way to handle it is to get back almost to the point of obsessiveness. Honestly if I’m working out at least once a day (twice is ideal) and my diet is ultra strict, everything else falls into place pretty easily. I don’t need nearly as much sleep and I can keep more balls in the air.
I KNOW Jon doesn’t expect perfect gourmet meals everyday. TheKid doesn’t expect me to be homeroom mother and president of the PTA. My bosses don’t expect me to single handedly grow our business or work 50 hours a week. But if I’m not striving for something close to that, where would I end up? I hate the idea of being lazy and I’m very unhappy with the way I’m running my life right now. Not to be confused with how I feel about my life in general. Overall I’m happier than I’ve been in…a LONG time. Home is wonderful, work is great…I’m just not happy with myself. I’m not happy with what I’m contributing to my own existence. I feel like I can better serve myself and my family. So I’ll spend this weekend doing some ultra planning. It’s time to regain some of my tendency towards neuroticism. After we go hiking at Camel’s Back that is…
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday – I was bored today, the house was clean and there are 4 males around this week to feed.
We went out to Jon’s grandma’s house tonight to help her shuck some corn. He walked in before us and she looked up and said “Where’s your family?”
Yep. Family.
The one person who intimidated me, the one person I was scared I wouldn’t be able to have a relationship with…she called us family.
I might’ve cried when he told me.
Weekly Winners brought is hosted by the amazingly talented Lotus. Seriously, her shots never fail to leave me breathless.
As for mine…alot of pics this week from our cross country trip: Indy to Springfield MO to Boise ID.
We got hooked up with cable internet yesterday afternoon late. I didn’t bring my computer but Jon set me up on his sweet laptop. Now I’m just rebuilding my faves because until the last minute, I planned to bring mine so never installed Foxmarks. I promise I’ll get back around to visiting all of you.
I’m also going to (plan to) upload photos from our trip out here tomorrow.
It’s been good so far. I’ve been cooking & cleaning alot. I’m exhausted this evening…this domestic stuff is much harder than it looks but I’m loving every second of it. Tonight I was standing at the stove stirring the enchilada filliing while Jon stood in the kitchen behind me turning his youngest upside down and making him giggle loudly. The older two were in their room going on about something or another and suddenly I was overcome with a sense of peace. This is home.
There’s so many stories I’ve thought about posting and I’m sure I’ll get around to some of them. In addition to TheKid (age 11) you will now be hearing about TheBoy (age 10) and TheLilOne (age 5). They’re fun and funny and pure boys. It’s a bit of a culture shock but I think I’ll enjoy it.
Three days, approximately thirty hours of drive time, 2,000 (horizontal) miles and several hundred feet above sea level later and we’re in Boise ID.
It was a fairly uneventful trip. The cat travels amazingly well although I don’t think I want to test her like that again anytime soon. Or ever. She whined a couple of times the first day when I’d look back to check on her because she was so quiet. After that the only time we heard from her was after about 12 hours yesterday. And then when we stopped and let her out (on her harness/leash), she took one look at the big open sky and vehicles in the parking lot and decided the carrier wasn’t so bad after all.
The kid traveled quite well too. His patience was really tested the last 3-4 hours when his Gameboy died but for the most part, I was quite happy with him. He had me cracking up on several occassions with comments like “What’s our estimated time of arrival?”. One other time Jon & I were laughing at something else…maybe TheKid but I don’t remember. TheKid starts giggling then asks “What are we laughing at?” at which point I think I quit breathing.
It was a great, easy trip across country. We didn’t get lost (yay GPS…and yay Jon for knowing when to ignore the GPS) and no car troubles. No meltdowns from the kid or the cat. I nearly had one somewhere in Utah after getting overwhelmed by the mountains being RIGHT FREAKING THERE, being more light headed than I think I’ve ever been while sitting down and suddenly being hit with the full impact that I was a thousand miles from anything or anyone familiar. It all passed quickly except for the lightheadness. But I’ve been in a car for most of the past three days and the altitude is a little higher than I’m used to.
I’m so glad we did this. Everyone should make one cross country drive in their lives I think. I looked at Jon at one point and said “There’s the amber waves of grain and soon we’ll see the purple mountains majesty” And we did, along with the spacious skies. It’s gorgeous out here, absolutly gorgeous. It’s a foreign environment but we’ll adjust quickly. I’m looking forward to it.
