Everyone around here is getting a little extra love.  Including The Dog, who may need it as she’s limping around on one of her back legs. We took her to the vet and the diagnosis is a big, fat “Dunno” and a prescription for anti-inflammatory pills and directions to bring her back in on Tuesday.

She’s a dog.  She isn’t a father, a husband or a child.  But even she gets to enjoy the “I love and appreciate you” sense that comes when you are smacked hard across the head with the utter fragility of life.

Hug your babies–hard enough that they can’t breath and squirm to get away–smell their hair.  Kiss your lover straight on the mouth.  Pat the Dog’s head and scratch her just behind the ears where she likes it.

Life isn’t guaranteed.  It’s fragile.  Handle with much care.

Organizations pimping themselves to kids at school.  It seems on the edge of seedily manipulative to get kids FIRED UP with Brightly Colored Stickers! Enticing Brochures! Representative Sales Pitches!  I mean, it’s a non-school organization advertising ‘aggressively’ (in my opinion as the parent of a K and 1st grader) in a school situation.  Recently it’s those damn Boy Scouts.  I’m not sure exactly what the promotion situation is but Drew came home ALL AQUIVER with excitement about Going Camping! Hiking! Roasting Marshmallows! Doing Cool Boy Stuff! and said that He Just HAD to become a Boy Scout and all of the cool kids are doing it.

Ahem.  (I feel like Delores Umbridge in Harry Potter.  {Ahem, Ahem})

First of all, participating in Boy Scouts is Not Free.  You have to pay  dues and pay for the mandatory uniform.  Also, while the regular weekly activities are included with the dues, the Fun, Cool stuff with Tents and Sharp Pointy Sticks are extra.  Of course, Drew doesn’t understand this.  He just hears Outdoor Activities and he’s all gung-ho to go.  It doesn’t help that for a week solid it seems that we got stuff Every Day in his folder–it was like a political campaign.  Of course, it’s not just Boy Scouts.  It’s the YMCA, the various sports leagues, the area Karate Studios.  And Drew, being Drew, just does not understand why he can’t do all of these fun things.  We try to explain that A) He’s already doing soccer–which is not exactly a cheap activity and it involves quite a time commitment. B) It’s not like Boy Scouts is all party zone and marshmallows all of the time. C) We cannot participate in multiple activities with multiple children requiring multiple late nights per week.  What he hears is “You are missing all of the fun that all those other kids are having.”  I wearily accept that schools allow SOME organizations advertising access to my kids’ backpacks.  I don’t LIKE it, but I accept it.  What I do not like is that they cannot simply put a brochure into the folder, they have to Sell it with the deliberately misleading videos (it’s not all fun all of the time), aggressive marketing tactics (for a first grader, anyway) and the rah-rah ‘everyone should be a part of this!’ attitude.

It’s not just the Boy Scouts and maybe I’m a overly sensitive to this sort of thing (YA THINK?).  But Boy Scouts is the one that Drew’s driving me CRAZY wanting to join.  And if they had simply sent home a flyer in his folder, Bryan and I could have discussed it without the eyes shining with excitement and the “PULEEAAAASE, MOM” and the damn sticker on his chest, reminding him that He Should Be a Boy Scout!  It may be that he does it and LOVES it.  We may end up being a Scout Family.  Who knows?  It may be that we try it and find out it’s not for us.  But of course, that’s not before we pay the dues, buy the mandatory uniform and pay to attend the campout.  It may be that this is one of those Life Lesson moments for us in terms of not getting to do everything.  But I would have preferred to make that decision without the propaganda and the advertising ploy applied to My First Grader.

I would just like to add “GET OFF MY LAWN!”

All of this leads me to think that I probably need to get Mexican food and get laid tonight because WOOBOY, an entire blog post bashing the Boy Scouts is a New Low for me.

1) Upon the birth of my first child, I quit my job as a teacher because I was VERY idealistic and ridiculously naive and I was very confident I would be a great mother, stay-at-home wife and person and when the perfect moment arrived, I would fall right back into teaching with my stellar credentials and reliable contacts.

2) Eventually, we sold the starter home we had been living in (right as the economy was tanking) to live in a teeny tiny rental house on family property thinking this would allow me the opportunity to continue to stay at home with our two small-ish children and actually survive on my husband’s meager salary whilst enjoying the benefits of living next door to Bryan’s granddad, picking fruit from the trees, eating blueberries off the bushes and climbing trees in our back yard.

3) Our salary was slashed (woohoo!) for about a year as Bryan’s company tried to stay afloat.  Our children both started full-time school and I dipped a toe into the waters of employment…cautiously.  Nothing happened.  Recently, Bryan’s salary went back to it’s former meager glory.

4) Both of my kids are in full-time school and I am still unemployed.  I have dabbled in professional photography (meaning people pay me to take their pictures) and have done fairly well so far but it by NO means substantiates a large income and in it’s infancy state, my business is a lot of giving and not so much the taking (as in padding our account).  I realize that this is perfectly normal for a budding business and I am not exactly parading around drumming up customers but…

I am tired of being a one income family.

I really, really am.

I would LOVE to have some disposable income.  I would love to not worry as the bills come in.  I would love to not have to nickel and dime everything.

But there are literally NO jobs for teachers around here.  And I’m not exactly swimming with potential as an employee, am I?

My resume reads like this:

1) I am rilly,rilly smart.  Like no, seriously.  Whaa???  NO, I PROMISE!  In all of those standardized tests, I always scored in the 95%-ile.  Whaa??  Those things don’t COUNT?  IN REAL LIFE?  Shit.

2) I am quasi-creative.  I write.  Well, I string together somewhat amusing sentences using lots of dashes (because my comma usage—well, it’s questionable).  Oh, wait, no.  I don’t exactly have any experience in actual writing and this blog isn’t exactly widely read (Hello, most readers who know me in real life and live within a fifty mile radius of my house) and my view numbers are…not exponentially high.  Um…no.  I haven’t actually studied any fabled writers.  And I have no experience with writing anything but this blog.  And I have nothing very interesting to say.  But I do read a lot…of books and blogs.  That counts, right?  I’m not even going to pretend I can cook, clean or parent well.  Perhaps I can write a photojournalistic column with a snarky view on parenting.  Yeah!  That’s not a tired schtick, right?  And editors should be KNOCKING on my DOOR to edit my grammatically-nightmarish submissions

Crap.

BUT!  I do photography.  People pay me REAL CASH MONEY to take pictures and photoshop the hell out of those pictures!  I mean, sure.  The point *could* be made that I spend about five or more hours on each photoshoot and the editing.  So that puts me at the average wage of….a Target employee.  And TONS of people “do photography” on the side, as evidenced by the “like” pages of my friends on facebook.  Um…I mean…

WELL FINE!  I can paste and glue and cut like a mofo.  Seriously, I am the Queen of Glitter.  I went through an entire FOUR YEARS of COLLEGE devoted to learning how to teach kids how to glue in a developmentally-appropriate way.

But…er…those aren’t exactly skills most businesses desire?

3) I AM SNARKY, SARCASTIC and IRREVERENT!  What?  Isn’t that what EVERYONE wants in a future employee?  No?  But I’m Witty!  Where are you going?

4) Errrr…I…er…I

I am so underwhelming.

And unemployed.

And depressed now.

Crap.

We are so screwed.

I delivered cupcakes to her class for her birthday today and she clung to me while she ate her cheesy nachos and drank her strawberry milk, pausing occasionally to say, “I love you, Mom!” and “Thanks for bringing me birthday cupcakes!” and “Don’t you think we need to check on the cupcakes?”

She asked if I would come play on the playground and slide on the slides with her during recess and knowing my daughter and knowing that walking away to a playground filled with friends, swings and sugar highs (from the brightly colored icing) would be much easier for her than me leaving after the fun of recess is over and the dregs of the day begin, I hugged her tight, told her I had birthday surprises to wrap and watched her skip away happily.  And my heart broke.

When I was a little girl, I would walk in from school eager to shed the constraints of the day.  I looked forward to getting off the bus to a snack, some cartoons and play.  Sometimes, my Mom would pester me about changing my school clothes (something I DREADED) and picking up my bedroom (ALSO DREADED) and I would stall, whine, complain or ignore in my quest to avoid those dreaded chores.  Sometimes she would start to get that ’serious’ voice and I have vivid memories of her saying, “Gracie, you get in your bedroom RIGHT NOW and change your clothes and clean up your bedroom or YOU’RE GROUNDED, young lady!”  I imagine her amusement tinged in there with the put-on sternness.  I would sulkily oblige and trudge down the hall and s   l   o   w   l    y open the door…to a completely sparklingly clean room.  She had cleaned it while I was at school as a surprise.  I remember it being the BEST feeling in the world as I raced back to my now grinning Mom to squeeze her in a big hug and thank her excitedly.

All of these thoughts tumbled through my head as I stood in the doorway of my little’s girl’s bedroom.  It is messy–full of detritus from her games, little squiggly pieces of papers from her creations and stickers and tape sticking random bits of ideas and drawings to everything.  And so I sat down and started filtering through her possessions.  Her toys, her artwork, her school papers and her stuffed animals…all the little pieces of her life.  I stacked and organized and folded and staged and swept.  And when the last blanket had been arranged on her bed and the last dress hung back up, I surveyed my work.  She will be so excited.

Malyn, a couple of days old

Almost 1 year old

Two year old Girl

Three was a good year for us

Four was full of ENERGY

Oh, 5, you are already breaking my heart

So now we’re all sitting around here checking facebook.  Ahhh, the internet age.

Facebook birth

Will keep you updated when he arrives.  Squee!  Squishy nephew to snuggle!  Yeah!

Edited to Update:

7:06 pm–Liam is currently hung up on her pelvic bone…so they’ll start pushing in a little while.  We did a few practice pushes but he’s not quite wanting to slide right out.

Well…that’s a boy for you!

*******************************************

Shortly after the birth of our second child, I had an IUD put in.  Best Decision For Me Ever.  I LOVED having an IUD and for the past 5 years, I have had NO PERIOD.  Yes, friends, I have been BLOOD FREE for half a decade.  It’s been awesome.  I have a few beefs with my chosen IUD, Mirena, but obviously nothing serious enough to make me contemplate it’s removal.

A few years after that, Bryan had his vasectomy.  You can read a copy of my thoughts about that particular procedure Here.  (Good Times.)

We took his first…er…’sample’ to the office a few weeks after the surgery and it came back clean.  But since we are the particularly lazy sort of folk, we had never gotten his second sample tested.  It just wasn’t a priority since our birth control needs were covered by my IUD.  Unfortunately, the five year lifespan was up and I scheduled the removal earlier this year.  I reminded Bryan about the second sample issue at the time…and I randomly reminded him as the time drew closer.  Finally, I had my IUD removed (last Monday) and I opted to not have another one inserted just to see if those few issues I had are actually due to the Mirena or are just me going crazy and getting older.  (I think we can all guess what the consensus is…)  Anyway, that night, we realized with stunning clarity that we were no longer absolutely protected against conception.  I mean, sure, he has had a vasectomy.  And his first sample came back completely empty of sperm (dead or alive).  BUT STILL…WHAT IF??!?  We couldn’t be completely sure we were in the safe until we had a second sample tested.  So, last week, I called the doctor to see if they would even look at his sample since it had been so long since the surgery.  They assured me that they would but that the doctor was not going to be in the rest of the week and the earliest he could look at it was Monday (today).  I asked if we could take a sample that day and the nurse said that the doctor was scheduled to leave in 15 minutes.  Now, I felt pretty confident that we could have swung that (although the doctor is 17 minutes from my house) but seeing as Bryan was at work, it was just not happening.  So when I delivered the bad news to Bryan, we resigned ourselves to a prolonged period of abstinence.  For many, many reasons, we are not condom folks and unless there is a medical guarantee of at least 99% on a birth control method, we would NOT risk it (ruling out other forms of protection).

I realize that most people would totally be like, “He’s had a VASECTOMY FERCRYINOUTLOUD!  I THINK IT’S SAFE!’  But see, those people are risk-takers.  They’re the ones who end up with third or fourth children.  They’re the ones who, upon finding out they were expecting again would say something like, “Well, isn’t this a BIG HAPPY SURPRISE!  I suppose it’s Just Meant to Be!  And this can be our MIRACLE BABY!” and Bryan and I would be all “SOB!  WOE!  ADOPTION AGENCIES–WOULD ANYONE LIKE A BRYAN CLONE?”  Because, as much as I Looouuuurve my children, I am DONE! FINITE! NO MORE! about the babies.  Nieces?  Awesome.  Nephews?  Spectacular!  Other People’s Kids?  FABULOUS!  But Not So Much with the Babies for Us.

So abstinence was the name of the game.  And lo, it was a rough week.  And I guess that’s all there is to say about that.  We nearly got divorced before this morning came around.

So I HAPPILY took the sample up there immediately after dropping the kids off this morning and eagerly awaited the return “All Clear” from the nurse–which never came.  I finally called them at around 2:30 and may or may not have left a desperate message in a voice twinged with utter despair and panic.  ”You HAVE TO TELL ME because we may not SURVIVE tonight if you don’t!”

And then the nurse called back and told me that we have the ALL CLEAR and I may have giggled and shouted gleefully into the phone.  And she said, “That certainly is good!”  And woo, boy but she doesn’t know, does she?

Bryan’s boys no longer swim.  And I feel like buying him a beer and heartily congratulating him with a palm-slap on the back.

You’re shooting blanks!  Good Man!  Congratulations!

Drew was Incredibly Afraid of being put to sleep so we told him that the medicine would just make him FEEL sleep but OF COURSE (Wink, wink) he would not HAVE to go to sleep.  So, he happily took the intoxication-inducing medicine exclaiming a few minutes after ingestion, “HEY, This stuff doesn’t WORK!  I don’t feel droopy AT ALL!”  About ten minutes later, we could barely make out his slurred, breathy statement, “I think it’s working.  I am droopy now!”

It was a hilarious interlude during what I find to be a stressful time.  I KNOW, I KNOW that tons of kids have tonsils removed every day.  And I KNOW, I KNOW that Drew has already had a surgery with anesthesia and reacted just beautifully.  But, it’s a little icky when the reality is that someone is sticking a knife in your kid’s throat while someone else is BREATHING for him.  Bleh.  No thanks.

The recovery involves two weeks of limited activity, which HA!  And HAHAHAHAHHHHAHAAAHAHAHA!  Because try telling that to my 7 year old who, mere hours after surgery was trying to jump around the room doing karate moves.  We compromised and spent 5 days (including the day of the surgery) with as much down time as we could manage hence the hours and hours of movies, video games and Netflix instant streaming.  Because, while we are more than happy to do what we can to help Drew with his SPD, we are only human, people, so a purchase of a Roku Box and Netflix subscription was definitely in order.

So far it is ALL GOOD with the Roku.  The only problem is the age-old problem of who controls what we watch after the kids go to bed.  We were having this discussion last night as I wanted to watch a girlie-brain-candy movie and Bryan wanted to watch blood and gore splattering stuff.  I asked him the question: Who should get the final say about what we watch?  And he nodded serenely and pointed to his…er…male member…and then kind of shook his head at me and said, “I have the penis.  So I control the remote.”

I then, oh-so-gently reminded him that he was MORE than welcome to claim the penis but that would entail actually accomplishing penis-driven tasks such as “change the oil in my car” (currently: WalMart has the penis), “subject himself to the honey-do list” (currently: No One or I accomplish these tasks), etc, etc.  He immediately renegotiated his stance and said that I was MORE THAN WELCOME to watch girly movies during the day while the children are at school as long as he doesn’t have to watch them at night.

Which, I don’t know, ladies, but I’m thinking that sounds like PERMISSION and I’m also thinking Bon-bons.

Unfortunately, I am not much of a TV/movie watcher but I SURE gave it a GOOD SHOT today as I watched that movie while LOUNGING on the couch.

I likey...

I go to a group of doctors and have long since ditched the MDs (who are great and I like them just fine, really) in favor of the midwife.  She saw me nearly every single visit with my pregnancy with Malyn (which was a LOT of visits because of premature labor–which ended up just being my body’s way of saying, Hey, look people we’ve done this before and we’re just getting warmed up) and she delivered Malyn.  I have sent probably DOZENS of people to that practice and to her–enough to possibly qualify as some sort of marketing position.  Or a discount.  But oddly enough, they haven’t started my compensation.  All of this to say that she and I are friends.  I mean friends in a sort of way where she holds all of the power considering she only sees me when I’m naked and she’s fully clothed.  I suggested that maybe we should meet up when I actually have my clothes on OR she should start coming into our visits naked and I’m not sure about this, but I think I just lost my position there.  Because they DID NOT schedule a return visit.

And because humility does not end there, I ran into my high school geometry teacher and her husband (who, at one point, coached Bryan and me) today while I was eating lunch with my SIL.  I LOVED my high school geometry teacher because she had beautiful handwriting.  Which, in retrospect, seems like a perfectly high school reason to determine the effectiveness of a teacher, no?  I later realized that she was a great, funny person as well as being a highly effective teacher.  Upon asking about my employment status, she encouraged me to try to pass the math portion to teach high school math because she feels like I would be great at it.

Ha.

Ha ha.

I told that there was NO WAY I could pass that test because it had been over ten…wait…almost FIFTEEN years since I graduated from high school and used such nonsense.  I did reassure her that I could most definitely pass the *geometry* portion of the test (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  Because I’m all smooth like that.  Anyway, she commiserated with my desire to earn money as she stayed home for ten years when her children were little.  I said, “Well, I’ve been doing photography on the side to earn some extra money…” and she smiled very big and said, “Yes, I KNOW.  I saw that.”  And turned to congratulate my SIL, Alexis whose maternity shoot I just recently finished–you know, the NUDEY ONE!

And my head fell on the floor and rolled under the table into a small pile of black beans and sour cream (Welcome to Moe’s!).  And lo, there was MUCH embarrassment.  For me.  Everyone else was fine.  I am the only one who falls into a puddle when I realize someone actually looks at my pictures or reads my writing.  It’s okay  for people to read it and comment as long as I don’t have to see them in real life!

Speaking of running into high school teachers, this situation reminds me of the time I was at the grocery store picking up chips and booze for Bryan (not a beer drinker, myself) when I ran into one of the coaches from my high school.  The coach whose daughter I would spend the night with as a part of a close-knit group of girls I ran around with.  We were the same age.  And even though I was CLEARLY over the age of 21 and HE KNEW IT because his own daughter was my age, I stammered a caught-in-a-lie-college-freshman-esque-think-fast-and-don’t-get-caught excuse and said, “OH, THIS?  THIS ISN’T MINE!  IT’S BRYAN’S!”  (!?!What was I thinking?!?)  Because I am all smooth like that.  And he laughed at me and said, “I doesn’t matter if it’s YOURS because you’re old enough to drink!  Have a good evening!”  But y’all, he was my high school health teacher and I felt I was LETTING him DOWN for giving into the EVILS of ALCOHOL!  But I really wasn’t!  Because it really was Bryan’s!  But I am SUCH A DORK FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO PLAY IT COOL.

And that’s the truth.  I have NOT the FIRST bit of cool in my entire body.  I truly am a geeky little nerd who feels all a-fumble and flustered in any even slightly awkward social situation.  And you know, seeing as how I write a blog where I talk about panties, boobs and my gynocologist, I should probably just Never Go Out Anywhere Again.

Sigh.  At least at my yearly, I got to sit around (albeit naked) and read magazines in peace and quiet.

Good thing we only have a few weeks left…because I am exhausted, y’all.  I have been reading, preparing “practice school stuff”, entertaining, cleaning, taxiing, mediating, redirecting and applying sunscreen and I’m about done.  While the school year holds its own special brand of grind, I am ready for the change.  Cooler weather, crisp mornings, CHILD-FREE HOUSE…oh yeah, there’s the upside of remaining unemployed.

I know I will miss all of this come January.  I know I will be Ready For School To Be Out come April.  It has been so much fun, I can’t help but be excited for next year.  But for now, let’s do some deep breathing, clean up the teeny-tiny hole-punch circles that my daughter has insisted on sprinkling all over the living room in a misguided attempt at making “snow” (thanks STUPID MAGIC SHOW GUY) and enjoy what’s left of my favorite summer so far.

******

I am UP TO MY NECK with end-of-summer appointments.  Drew has been referred for evaluation to a place to officially diagnose him with Sensory Processing Disorder.  We KNOW he has it…so I am not sure how this is going to Help.  Maybe I am hoping for the Official Stamp of Medical Diagnosis.  Maybe I am hoping for some clarification.  Maybe I am wondering, on the pendulum scale, how bad it is.  I suppose I would like to know what therapies are available–if any are.

And, because my life is nothing if not circuitous and ever-winding, Drew is headed to see his ENT to look at the possibility he needs to have his tonsils removed.  My pediatrician (whom I would literally trust with my kids’ lives) mentioned at our last check-up after hearing a video recording Bryan and I had done of Drew’s snoring (loud, bellowsome) that there is a good chance he has sleep apnea.  So, we listened to him for four ten-minute intervals and while I am not going to proclaim to the heavens that he indeed has it, I became convinced it is a possibility.  Three out of the four times we watched him, he definitely had an interrupted breathing pattern which resulted in him tossing and turning before settling back down.  Does it constitute sleep apnea?  Who knows.  But his pediatrician thinks there’s a chance so off to the ENT we go.  His tonsils are also very large and there’s the small matter that one of his tubes (inserted over two years ago) is still firmly lodged in place and needs to be removed.  Evidently this is something done under anaesthesia in an operating room so we might be able to knock out two things in one surgery bill.  Interestingly, there is some thought that lack of oxygen at birth or from sleep apnea may contribute to the symptoms of Sensory Processing Disorder which completes the circle of crazy.   Also noteworthy, upon birth, Drew had to be “worked on” because he wasn’t breathing as well as the doctor wanted.  He had swallowed meconium whilst in the birth canal and they had to suction out his lungs.  They also whisked him away fairly quickly after his birth to be monitored but he was deemed “okay” and took up residence with us a few hours later.  Is this possibly a contributing factor?  Who knows.  I guess we’re negotiating the miasma of possibility here and while I am sure we will never definitively know, Bryan and I are fairly determined to at least seek out whatever answer we may be able to find.

*****

Funny enough, I would point to Malyn being the one getting too little sleep because she has become quite the demon-child lately.  She absolutely personifies the “little girl with a little curl in the middle of her forehead” and I am fervently hoping that this is only a phase because Woo-Lordy, she can be a menacing brat with lungs lately.  Utterly delicious and insanely cute one minute and the next she morphs into That Snake Lady…er…Medusa but Medusa on CRACK because the sounds emitted when she doesn’t get her way can peel paint.

Look, she even has the curl.

Girl with Curl

A few cute things she’s managed lately:

Malyn: “Aunt Jess, what is Uncle Paul doing?” (we were driving on the beach)

Jess: He’s surfing.

Malyn: It looks more like practicing.

—–

While kayaking down the river with my biological Dad (not to be confused with my step-Dad whom I call my Dad), Malyn was riding on the back portion of his inflatable kayak and she had gotten on already waiting for him to climb on to resume the trip.  As he did so, the kayak tilted and dumped her out.  As she came up out of the water, she said:  ”Maybe it would be a good idea if you got on first this time, Tutu!” (the kids’ name for him)

—–

Malyn: MOM!  The dog growled at me!

Me: What were you doing?

Malyn: I was only trying to tape her mouth shut!

(Note: To be fair, the dog didn’t growl but kind of harumphed at her and Malyn *had* taped her own mouth shut already so she wasn’t asking the dog to do anything she wouldn’t do.  But it didn’t matter because the dog’s mouth remained untaped.)

****

Lately, I have had a hard time getting traction on any given project.  It seems like I am spinning and flitting from task to task–never accomplishing anything but keeping all of my plates spinning in giant, loopy wobbles–everything on the verge of teetering over to disaster.  Be it editing photography, doing laundry or planning our adventures, I feel like I am ADD-ing my way through my to-do list–never fully able to cross anything off but continually having to add little scribbles, asterisks and prequels.  My task list looks like a sad, poorly defined graphic novel where the author has penciled arrows and notes in the margins and crossed things through only to rewrite them with caveats and accompanying sentences for explanation.  It’s just pathetic when your to-do list(s!) require short paragraphs.  I hope that this is more a convergence of qualifying circumstances-driven scenarios which require things to happen in an exquisite and unforeseeable series of events and it will all work out into a carefully woven scene rather than I am just going insane.  I suppose there is also the chance that this is the beginning of ADD-like senility where I repeatedly ask clarifying questions and am baffled when things spontaneously work out or collapse around me.  Or perhaps I just need a little sustaining chocolate and a break from the stop-start routine of trying to do anything with children around.  Interruptions have never been my friend.  I enjoy working, reading or doing anything “in the zone” and get mildly frustrated to intensely displeased when anyone penetrates the fog surrounding my bubble of concentration–even if it’s for legitimate things like hunger, blood or sleep.  To be fair, sometimes the situations where I get “in the zone” are not appropriately timed–like trying to edit a photo shoot when I KNOW the kids need to get out of the house and move.  Or choosing to blog about it when what I really need to do is make myself take a break from tasks I am not closer to accomplishing anyway.

Obviously, the proceeding paragraph is like my to-do list.  Instead of spelling out a few, accomplishable tasks, I have added strung-together words, clauses and ended up with too many letters which ultimately spell out “AM OVERWHELMED: SEND BAKED GOODS”!

Okay, fine.  I will take off “solve healthcare crisis” and “get job in career field which is currently NOT HIRING” off of my to do list and focus on things I can actually do, for example, “Make sure to eat a vegetable today” and “get out of the house”.