Updates and a Confession

It made my heart grow faint when I saw this message on my dashboard "scheduled outage at 2:00 PM PDT". It says only 10 minutes. Okay - I can handle that.
An update on the FaxZero service - works like a charm. The only issue I can see is that you can only send .doc (Word) documents or .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) documents. I have used both the free fax and the $1.99 faxing options. They both went through successfully - so have at it.
And.... if you've read here more than once you know that I'm pretty upfront with things. I share my heart unabashedly; the good, the bad, the ugly, the partially processed thoughts and the thoughts with fillers (think of your brain as SPAM). So I have a wee confession of sorts to make, as they say confession is good for the soul. I have been a neglectful mother. I have been under a tremendous amount of stress because of our financial situation - which is extreme in ways I cannot express fully here out of respect for the privacy of others. That stress has led me to hole up on my computer - and while I have been busy in ways that are productive - working on my planner, writing assignments, helping friends, going way overboard with my job - because I can immerse myself there and zone out. Yep - I've kept up with the housework, cooked meals, planned things - but I haven't been really tuned in as a mom. Can anybody relate to that half-listening state and the feeling of just wanting to be left alone? It isn't them. It is totally me. I don't want to be asked for something I can't give. I can't take another expectation, question, heart to heart because I am kinda spent - and the biggest drain is stress. Please pray for us - because in the next week to 10 days, we will either have relief or our situation will increase a hundred-fold. I can feel it in my neck, my back, my head.
This evening, the kids and I are going to a local water park for a few hours reprieve. I am going to squeeze my chubby little butt into a bathing suit and go float some of my cares away on the lazy river with my kids. I will not think about anything else. I will laugh. I will enjoy their smiles. I will look them in the eye. I will remember what a privilege it is to be their mom.
Thanks for letting me spew a bit. You can wipe yourselves off now!

A Full Plate

Right now my bed is piled a mile high with laundry. I put it there so that I will have to deal with it before bed - but at the moment I am contemplating throwing it to the floor. I know that my busy-ness has become a repetitive theme of late - but man! I have been sewing most of the day and still not halfway through with one dress. My neighbor Debra came over and helped me get started because no matter how many times I read the pattern, I was feeling a bit dyslexic about it. You know how they say two heads are better than one - if you figure me into that right now you might only actually have one including Debra. I have been sewing and cooking and stressing about the reading I am supposed to be doing but am not. I feel so overwhelmed. I have got to figure out how on earth I am going to get everything done. I keep thinking "just do the next thing" but I don't know what to do next. Yikes. Somebody come to Texas, make me some coffee and stay up all night with me while I sew. I was thinking earlier, as I often do when I'm stressed, what is the fewest hours of sleep I can get and still function, which is always extremely healthy. Oh and my sweetheart just called on his way home to remind me I am supposed to cut his hair TONIGHT. Oh yeah, that. Did I also mention that it is the most horrible week of the month? Yep - that too. I need some chocolate and some wine right now!

Not One Word

I don't make "resolutions" per se. I do like a fresh start at something though, and the new year seems a perfect opportunity to invest yourself in something new. I have a serious writing project that I was going to plunge myself into after the new year, and I haven't written at all.
Not.one.word.
Stress really takes all creative energy out of you.

Under a Rock and Lovin' It

Watching television has always been an issue for me. Much of what is on television is not worth watching. I can find myself sucked into hours and hours of nothingness, I benefit nothing, I get nothing back and hours of my life that could be so much more wisely invested are gone forever. Even if it wasn't a moral issue - which much of the time it is - it is a waste of time and most television is just stupid. Netflix has allowed us to selectively bring into our home the level of stupidity and waste of time that we are comfortable with.
With this in mind you will see why I find it humorous that while I was gone my husband decided to purchase and install a motorized television antenna. One of the things he was happy about was that we could watch the news. Unlike regular television, the news keeps us informed. But, it makes.me.want.to.crawl.into.my.closet.and.stay.there.forever! This morning my husband woke me up to tell me that he saw our daughter's myspace picture on national television. After talking him down off the ceiling, we decided that it probably wasn't her due to the fact that her myspace is set to "private", and even if it was, why were we freaking about it? He left the boob tube on when he left for work, and I woke to a report that there was a murder in a town just south of us, a girl died when she was hit by a car, and that this hurricane season threatens to be one of the worst in US history. Joy. Back to bed, covers over my head, goodbye.
I think that it is one thing to be informed and have a realistic idea of what is happening out there. I was sad that I didn't know that there were 3 soldiers captured in Iraq, but then I wonder how knowing that would have helped other than if I pray for them. Sadly also that is not my original response - the knee-jerk reaction is to tense every muscle in my body and reach for Pepcid AC. It causes stress, and it is meant to evoke emotion in the listener. Listen to the intensity of voices, the urgency of the music. It is trying to freak us out. Why? Because then what we see on TV can shape our thinking, program an internal agenda, and control what we say and do. (THAT is another whole post!)
I was happy to be able to watch a super sermon on TV with the family on Sunday morning, and I do see advantages to having the ability to get network TV when we want it. But I think for now I'll just stick to reading the news online from time to time. I love it here under my little rock!