The Excitement of June 15th

1. Payroll tax deposit are due.

2. I will bake something today... probably some banana chocolate chip muffins or some blond brownies.

3. Dance class starts this afternoon for my 4 year old.

4. I need to call State Farm to use our $500 deductible to get our $1200 Land Rover windshield replaced.

5. I have yet to write my 1000 words for the day.

6. I have a large shipment coming from Amazon today including many beautiful picture books of New Orleans and the new Live at the Fillmore Chris Isaak CD.

7. If I have time after all of the above I will return to my studio and do another ring on my rug. Yes I spent several hours in there yesterday which is why I did not post to this my awesome blog.

I have noticed recently that both my blog posts and my Facebook status updates have suffered due to my intake of mind controlling drugs. My crazy seems to have slipped away and sometimes I miss it. I was flying high before on my uncontrollable mind and now I am regrettably significantly less crazy. While on one hand I am grateful, on the other hand I miss my violent mood swings and the strange places my mind used to wander. On this side of the fence life is slightly less interesting, but much more endurable.

My Birthday

Today is my, big sigh, 35th birthday.

I am now officially in my mid-thirties, not my early-thirties and I don't like it one bit. I don't mind the age so much, but I don't particularly like the number. I would much rather by 36. It sounds so much cooler than 35.

I am contemplating what to do today. I really don't want to spend the day refereeing the children around the house, reading, doing laundry and applying band-aids. We need to get out and do something, but the most exciting thing I can think of involves shopping at Target, still not something I think is quite right for spending my 35th birthday.

Tonight we will go out to my favorite restaurant, have one of those delicious pizza-cookies with vanilla bean ice cream on top and my dear husband will present me with some carefully selected presents he chose from my Amazon shopping cart. That is a perfect way to spend the night, but what about the day?

Bowling, the movies, the park, a hike, the creek, Barnes and Noble? It's hard to step out of the box of habits and see what else this town has to offer. Maybe we will cruise on down to Sedona, throw some rocks in the creek, hit up a rock shop and call it a day. Maybe I'm making too big a deal of it and we should just stay home and go with the flow.

Birthdays can be so stressful just trying to decide what you really want to do with a day that is supposedly "yours".

New Orleans is calling my Name

I have had this wicked obsession lately with New Orleans, Anne Rice, and specifically the Garden District.
I have never been to New Orleans, but it has been calling my name for a very long time. It's one of those southern cities that I dream about like Charleston and Savannah, places where there are so many beautiful houses I'm afraid I might pass out from the overwhelming beauty.

I called both Bank of America and Citi Mortgage this morning and there is still no news. If they still can't get their crap together and we still don't have to make mortgage payments for July 1, I think I'm going to have to buy a plane ticket to New Orleans and give in to my overwhelming desire to walk through the streets of the Garden District.

I almost feel as if I am in a city I don't belong in here in Flagstaff since we have nothing that could be called decent historical housing. We have one house, the Riordan Mansion, that while interesting for the area, is nothing like the houses I grew up in in Illinois. I have such a need to walk in and see and feel old houses, that I am purposely depriving myself of one of my one true loves by living in a city that prides itself on it's western heritage and abundance of log cabins and railroad depots.

I can pore over my Dover Victorian house plan books, and check out every architectural picture book at the library, but it's not the same as walking into a huge historical home with light fixtures, door hardware, and woodwork that smells of history and well-crafted housing. Oh it's giving me the shivers just thinking about it....metal push button light switches, butler pantries, back staircases, leaded glass windows, banisters and railing that seem to go on for miles, libraries, the front hall, hexagon tile floors, and built in dressers, creaking wooden floors, worn carpets, deep verandas and sun rooms and sleeping porches.

Oh I need to see an old house before I melt into a puddle on the floor.

Summertime

It's hot! Finally!

We ran into town this morning and it was 94 degrees.

We came back home and at our house (800 feet higher than town) it was only 83.

Get this: the roofers are supposed to finish today. It's only been exactly 6 months to the day since the roof ripped off back in December. They are not the quickest roofers (all 2 of them) and the weather has not always cooperated with them, but still, damn, that is a long time for a new roof.

I've been able to wear a skirt for the past 5 days in a row and have not once needed my fleece to warm me up in the morning.

I know this post is boring and pointless, but it is warming up my typing fingers for writing later. You are my warm up audience so deal with it.

Life is pretty boring in general right now. Nothing is going on. We are still waiting for paperwork from both banks for the loan mods. It's summer and the kids are home. There is nothing much for me to do but to read and write and try and keep the kids somewhat occupied so that they don't kill each other or eat too much sugar. It's a boring life, but it's very easy and predictable. Knock on wood.

Vertigo

No, not that kind of vertigo.

I had a really nasty bout of the real thing yesterday afternoon. My eyeballs were rolling and everything. I made the mistake of trying to lie down to stop it....... don't do it. Things roll even harder when you put your head down, or sideways, or anyway but straight up and down.

I'm hoping that this is just another nasty side effeact of my Citalopram... either that or I have a nasty ear infection or a brain tumor.

It sucked big time. If you've never experienced it, think about how you feel after you get off a violent roller coaster that does a lot of spinning. Usually you're fine after a few minutes, but vertigo goes from anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Mine was the few hours variety yesterday complete with rolling eyeballs, nausea, cold sweats and heavy breathing. I haven't been that sick in a long time.

Luckily I passed out upright on the couch for about 45 minutes and woke up perfectly normal.

I was hoping to be able to cancel my med check dr. appointment this week, but after that episode yesterday I'll have to go and report my sick brain.

Damn this is difficult.

Fuck Yeah!

It has recently come to my attention that my children are avid cursers. Last night at a neighborhood bonfire I was discussing with the other mothers and I was astonished to learn that my kids are the only ones who repeatedly use the words: shit, dammit, and on rare occasions, the f-word.

Now I'll be the first to admit I swear a lot, and obviously they have picked it up from me, but I blame their father entirely. After spending his entire childhood growing up in ghettos all over LA he picked up quite a colorful vocabulary.

Me, being the demure mid-western girl that I was, had never had a potty mouth till I started hanging out with him and his other potty mouthed friends.

I honestly don't care if my children curse. It doesn't bother me one bit. They keep it inside the house and know not to speak like that around other adults. As long as they know it is not appropriate language I think they understand how and when to use the words.

A great example of this was yesterday when a friend of my 10 year old stopped over unexpectedly and before inviting his friend up to his room my son said, "Wait just a minute I have to change the song I'm listening to." He was listening to RockStar by NERD which uses the f-word prolifically. He knows and he understands. I think that means that despite my lackadaisical parenting when it comes to swearing, he is still a good kid despite his colorful vocabulary.

After the Holiday

We just spent another jam packed weekend in the OC. The beach, Hero's, Irvine Lake Park, a baby shower, the Peterson Auto Museum, and the Grove all in a day and a half. I'm exhausted and still catching up on sleep as are the children.

Today I'm a little frustrated. I know I really only write this blog for myself, but some days it's a little frustrating to see that I have only 3 regular readers, and I usually only have about 5-10 new site hits a week. I know it's better than it was a few years ago, but still sometimes it's a little disheartening. I think I'm interesting and I think more people would think so as well if only I knew how to get them here. I suck at advertising and I'm not much of a people person to just go out and shamelessly self-promote. Most of the time it doesn't bother me, but sometimes I wish I had an audience.

Today is the day I start writing for reals. I'm going for 3000 words everyday except the weekends. If that works out to too much I'll drop it to 2500, but I'm going to shoot for the stars to begin with. If I can keep up with that I should have 120,000 words by the time school starts and then I can try and edit it into something publishable. Today I also start brushing up on my magazine/freelance skills. The goal is to submit something every 3 weeks.

If I'm not going to be an architect I've got to start doing something productive before I start to lose all my abilities to converse with other adults.