head vs. water...who will end up on top?

well, maybe it's not that dramatic...but i thought it was a good title...

we've just taken on a lot this semester. and while i think it is all very exciting and worthwhile stuff...and while i believe my family is at a point to be able to work cooperatively to achieve these goals we have set for this semester...and while i KNOW i'm not the only person who has any responsibility in maintaining the course we've laid out...i'm a little, uh, nervous. it's a lot of stuff...really, really cool stuff...a lot...yeah.

rock climbing again...woo-hoo! piano and flute lessons still...coolness. the cooperative effort has worked out and is a go...very, very exciting. robotics...two teams, no less...what more could a mama ask for? how about soccer?...but we haven't heard back on that one. and then there's ccd...or cce...whatever they're calling it these days. i plan to put the boys in those classes, too. they haven't taken a ccd class in five years. why? i don't know...i'm just not highly motivated to put them in classes pertaining to things as personal as religion when i don't feel i know who will be teaching them. and i realize children learn by example...and i must be providing some sort of example for them...i just have no idea what it is, because i've been so focused on other things. and i don't know why i could maintain a focus with the kids on religion, but i just couldn't. so i'd like them to get at least a year of class. plus i think it might quench my oldest's curiosity about girls...there are a ton of girls in catholicism....snort. i'll just have to keep him away from those preacher's kids...wink.

i worry that i feel so anxious and it hasn't even, you know, started or anything. and i didn't run today...so don't ask if i took my medicine. but i worked hard outside in the yard laying soaker hoses around my foundation and covering the ones in the backyard with hardware cloth...to keep the dogs from ripping them up and pissing me off, i mean challenging my balance. i even have the blisters and poked up hands to prove it. i'm going to try waking up early to run in the morning...the things i'll do to try to stay sane. (rolling eyes here...)

and tomorrow i have some friends coming over. it's under the pretense of a meeting, but i'm just happy to have them over. i don't know why i don't invite folks over more often. well, i often have the problem of wanting to invite everyone if i'm inviting anyone. and then i never feel like my house is clean and always worry people will be grossed out by some nastiness i don't know is there because, well, i'm not great at cleaning. but that just sounds stupid as i type it so whatever.

i do want to finish painting the house this summer so i can put the painting crap away.

sigh...i'm just not sure who's going to end up on top...but i suppose i should stop struggling and being so stiff if i want it to be my head...haha, that's funny. i have to get out of my head so much to keep my head on top. made myself smile...
peace

drug of choice

my bff after high school, patsy, used to work at a home for adults with different disabilities. she worked with a woman with down's syndrome who would have anxiety attacks. whenever one was coming, patsy would ask her, "did you take your medicine?" and the woman would say, "buspar makes.me.caaallllm...." spreading her hands out gently for effect. it worked for her.

if someone asked me if i took my medicine, i'd have to say, "running makes.me.caaallllm." i ran last night and the calm that settled on me was...well...remarkable. i never thought i'd be a regular enough runner to get used to the effects of it. but i guess i have. because i've had some pretty big anxiety attacks lately...and i've been able to work through my anxieties, but today was so much better. i'll be getting on the treadmill here in a bit.

we've spent all day at a sumobot tournament. my bigs made and entered robots in this competition. they won at least a few rounds, which was a nice surprise for them. they both really love this robot thing. and i'm really glad they've found something they love and nice folks to share it with. but i've had enough of it for now, to be honest. i'm ready to take the kayaks out or do some climbing or something. enough indoors...well...not really. we're still hitting over 100 almost daily. but enough technology. we went to half price books today and i bought bug's life...on vhs...i just needed some low tech. i'm ready to pop it in here in a bit. once i convince them to turn off guitar hero.

peace out

balance

i think i mentioned that my spouse's schedule is a little funky, so i'm not getting to run lately. at least, not on my treadmill. my sister just reminded me i could do it outside, but do you really want me to tell you how hot it is?....again?....

so there's been all this thinking going on without any physical outlet to let some of this energy work itself out. and i think that's why i've had a nagging headache for a few days. i thought it was caffeine related, but now i'm not so sure. which, again, strikes me how subtle our actions are that maintain some balance...how things affect us in ways we aren't even aware of...how easy it is to upset the balance because it's difficult to realize all that's influencing it. more mystery...

but i will say that i think where mystery and personal responsibility meet and clash is at the line of accountability. who to blame when things go wrong? but i guess what i'm figuring out is that blame serves no one and is so misguided...there's that feeling of if we know how or why something went wrong, we can keep it from happening again. but i think that's a big old maybe. because, like i said, if things that influence outcomes are subtle, then how can we guarantee anything can be avoided? and at what cost? and for what unforeseen result?

so while i learn about and recognize a balance between my mental activity and my physical activity, i do wonder about a balance between the mystery and the not so mysterious...or maybe it's all mysterious...or none at all...(kind of chasing my tail here, huh?)

back to my coffee...
peace

some randomness

there have been so many things going on in my mind lately...it all seems random because i'm not spending much time on one particular thing. i mean, it's all related...and i understand what drives me from one thought to the next when i'm making the jump. but i admit i often look back and think, "what the hell was i thinking about?" and then give up rather than try to figure it out because there's probably something i should be doing...

and maybe that's why it's occurred to me several times lately how fragile things are...how uncertain...how fluid...how easily courses are switched in the blink of a decision. the other night i was going to call my spouse, but the hospital number wasn't on my caller id and i couldn't remember it, so i didn't. did he need to hear from me? i don't know. i thought it was a good idea until i realized i'd have to look the number up and then i figured he'd be fine. and he was. but it made me laugh to see the dime that decision turned on. and that's just the one i caught, i was aware of.

there have been times i've seen later the slight breeze that changed a course...was it fate? god? my will? evil? indifference? survival?

there are so many times i feel like i don't have a choice...or like i didn't have a choice. i know the kids feel the same way, too, often. i know my spouse suffers the same delusion. but we have lots of choices. and for some reason, the more i walk this path that i feel may crush me with its pressure, the more i realize just how many choices i have to get off of it. and i'm glad.

this has happened once before in my marriage...where i had to find all the different choices i had for getting out of it so that i could choose to be in it. staying only because i had no choice was making me miserable and i was turning into a pretty awful person. after finding all these other options, i chose to stay in my marriage.

i imagine we'll stay this medical course...but there are lots of different ways to walk it. and who says medicine has to be the most imposing part of this journey anyway? (ah, see, i just found another choice...)

this sounds all kind of loopy to me today. i didn't sit down with the intention to write this. i sat down determined to focus my thoughts long enough to write something. i have a lot of stuff to do today...and a lot of it is stuff i was supposed to do earlier in the week, but kept getting distracted from. and i've been choosing my distractions...i was aware of those choices. but i need to get this other stuff done now.
peace

ramble on (again)

i'm cutting back on caffeine this week...green tea in the mornings instead of my usual half caff coffee. so this may be more pessimistic than i really think i feel. but there are so many things bumping around in my head that i promised myself last night i'd get up and blog this morning.

i'm going to do this ala lanatron...

homeschooling... our co-op is on. and i'm excited about it. but i have less than a month to prepare for it, and i'm a little nervous, i guess. i am really grateful for the opportunities it's providing for my kids and their journeys. i was getting kind of worn out trying to meet all of their needs educationally, particularly since little bit is five today and starting "kindergarten" and going to have his own needs to be met. (well, he always did, i realize, but now he's ready to really be a part of things, you know?)

i waver a lot between believing that my guys are where they need to be and anxiety about what if i die and will they transition well to school? ok, i don't really worry about dying. but i do worry if they're "measuring up"...but then i remind myself about the yardstick they're being measured against and, while i don't embrace it totally, i can't deny is the pervasive yardstick. so while i'm feeling good about things, it is that time of year where, as i prepare for next year, i can't seem to help but reexamine all the reasons i do this and make sure my guiding principles are still working for us. which is a good thing, i realize, but not so very productive when you have these syllabuses (spellcheck says it's not syllabi...) to be creating, so is also kind of stressful.

intimacy... i think this is what was captivating me in those vampire books. meyers has a pretty terrific hand at capturing the energy of intimacy with her words. and the books are clean...none of the usual bloodbath/orgy typical of vampire books. i mean, they aren't blood-less or sex-less, but she focuses more on the energy of things than the mechanics.

anyway... i mentioned my almost fourteen year old was reading these. and we talked a little about how she captures the feelings involved in sex without describing the details of it. (we also mentioned that the characters didn't actually do it until they were married...i'm sorry, i couldn't help myself, i am a mother now...) but it's kind of weird to think of my teen reading something that i felt was pretty heavily threaded with such intimate energy... partly because i know he is craving it, whether or not he thinks of it that way. partly because i don't always know how to meet my own needs for intimacy. there's just so many different ways to do it... like parenting (myself?), where you have so many options available, you often fall into a rut of a few different things, getting frustrated when they don't work completely, forgetting how many different ways there are of doing things, looking at things, shifting things... i know i'm getting vague here. but it's mostly because i'm trying to say what i mean without listing all the things i don't mean...and it seems that's about all i have on this one.

mystery... since i was talking about parenting and since i think it's a part of intimacy, too... this is another aspect of life i've been thinking about a lot. i'll be thinking about stuff, life, whatnot...and working through my thoughts...and there is often this feeling like i should be able to figure something out...arrive at some definite conclusion, answer, life lesson. but lately, it often comes down to the fact that there is just some mystery to life, things i am not meant to understand in my head and that i need to work on my confidence in understanding in my heart. and while i feel frustrated when i bump into this mystery sometimes, i know i wouldn't wish the world to be different. ok, well, there are some things i would probably wish different...and regret later...but the mystery part? no...i wouldn't wish that away.

oh! and politics....but really, it's the internet... my mother has been sending me these anti-obama emails lately. not like personally written emails, imploring me to turn away from the dark democrats, but forwards....and i rarely read forwards to begin with, but i find political forwards particularly distasteful. i realize people are passionate about politics. but taking some small fact and turning into something totally irrelevant and barely true just to create a negative emotional response to something, well, it pisses me off. it's fighting dirty. it gets people so stressed and is just a general waste of energy. sheesh. can't we choose one candidate without villainizing the other? but mostly, i just wish my mom would chill out about this stuff or leave me out of it. i finally responded to one of her emails and she almost bit my head off, telling me what a long-standing, proud member of the republican party she is and how rock solid her opinions are...how i'm just sore because hillary didn't get the nomination, but how all the democrats would screw the country up. geez.... i'll hit delete on the rest of her forwards, but why does she have to send them to me in the first place? i get tired of people assuming if you're diplomatic that you aren't passionate, too. but it's fine...i'm working on letting it go...

running... my next half marathon is in november. but my spouse's schedule is funky this month and doesn't leave me much time for training. it's a drag. i think that the energy i am not letting go with running is going to make me a nervous, crazy wreck. but that's just my opinion. i should've run this morning. it was seventy-five degrees here this morning. i don't think we've had a temperature that cool since april or may... and i blew it blogging. well, i also laid on the couch with the sliding glass door open and enjoyed the temperature for a few minutes. i can't wait for fall...

ok...ramble off (again)
peace

zombie

my niece had her baby last night... (that's not part of the zombie post...just a pre-script i had to get out)

i have finished the stephenie meyers books. the twilight saga, i think they're called. twilight, new moon, eclipse, and then breaking dawn. i enjoyed them a lot, but i will admit the last one got...tedious. and i found myself psychoanalyzing the author a lot in that book, wondering if this is her fantasy or what...but maybe i reveal too much about my own fictional writing by saying that, i don't know. (i haven't written fiction in sooo long...)

i was obsessed over finishing this story, though. it was kind of disorienting. i truly felt like a zombie. i mean, i really haven't done much but read the past few days...it was all i could think about. and my head kind of hurts from it. i think my knees are sore from so much sitting and reading, too. this was fun, having a good story to be excited about reading, but i'm also glad it's over. i am sure my kids will be glad it's over, too. i know my spouse will be happy....snort.

so, now to life as usual...
peace

quickie

we went to visit dh's family this weekend...

prayers for my niece who is due friday, on 08-08-08. she looks wonderful, she and her husband are the kindest people, and i can't wait to meet this baby.

i am worn and feeling quite vulnerable after not having a weekend at home for a month. and spending time with my in laws, particularly one brother in law who is so fixated on insults lately, only exacerbates the weariness and defensiveness. but some time at home should help with this.

i think my kids feel much of the same.

we need to join a local gym so that we may start swimming daily (or near daily). we did some of that this weekend and the kids neeeeeeeeeeed that.

i bought all four of the stephanie meyers vampire books this weekend and am on the third one...halfway through it. my oldest son has been reading them, too, and is waiting for me to finish the third. i can't explain what is so compelling...i called them sweet valley high but with vampires. i do want to say, from what i remember of sweet valley high, that the writing of these books is a lot better and the plots are more intricate. but i can't help that i think they are also really sweet books and i am really enjoying them.

married life wasn't so hard this weekend.

there is another relationship that i am doing some meditating on... a friend i had not spoken to in a long time. and she's having a hard time.

and my sister's been in philadelphia all weekend attending a family wedding. so i've been thinking about her lots, too.

oh, and my niece who is moving three and a half hours away to begin her own journey with medical school. she got her first new car last week and moved into her apartment over the weekend. i know she is nervous. i know her family will ache sometimes with her absence. and i know everything will be great, too.

peace