How to Successfully Make a Major Life Change

Oh if only there were a book with this title.

And then inside the book a complete list of choices just for me.

Kind of like a choose your own adventure book, but just for my life. All the paths would be highlighted and the choices would have clear end results.

You know how when you  saw Eat Pray Love, (the movie makes it more evident that the book) and realized what a selfish bitch Elizabeth Gilbert was being when she left her perfectly amazing husband and New York life behind to go out and find herself? I feel like that.

I have everything. Awesome kids, supportive and loving husband, a community and network established, a job I love (most of the time), and a home filled with books, photographs, and movies. What more could a gal ask for?

Well this year we have no big plans that I am excited about (no Europe). I have kind of given up on writing (I don't seem to have the patience to complete anything when it gets difficult). I have a very dead end job that makes very little money. The children are all locked into great schools. Our business is frustrating, but profitable.

It feels like sophomore year of college. You know what's going on and how to make it, and now you just have to slog through 3 more years to graduate and make the next life change: graduation.

But at my age and in this stage of life everything will remain pretty much status quo for the next 10 years when the last of my kids graduates from high school. It seems like a very long stretch of working and homework and dinners and shopping at Target.

How does one add spice into that? Tickets to Katy Perry shows? 2 week summer vacations with the family? A new car? Rearranging the furniture and painting the living room a new color?

I know it's the journey and not the destination in life, but what if that journey has turned into an endless road trip through the cornfields of Illinois. Even looking out the window isn't any fun anymore.

And yes before you ask I do have PMS. It's those few days before when my hormone levels are so low that I question my entire life and where it needs to go next. And then wouldn't you know it iTunes radio turns to Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah and things gets really existential.

That new Apple commercial with Robin Williams monologue from Dead Poets Society is really getting to me and the ad is on constantly. It really doesn't make me want to buy Apple Products, but does make me question what I am doing now to add verse. "The powerful play goes on and YOU may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"
I've had this discussion here before about the importance of adding a verse. Does it make me any more or less of a person if I add a verse. We can't all be big important people in life. Somebody has to just deliver the mail. Somebody will just be really good at painting road stripes. I may be here solely to be an awesome mother to my children. What if that is my verse? How am I to know?

Making a change just to change is usually not a good idea. Should we pack up and move to Belize like those people we see on House Hunters? Should we sell our business and relocate? Should we downsize so that we have more family time and money to travel? Should we try to eat healthier? Is it just the pressure of a New Year and the need to do better than last year? Or is it just Jan/Feb and I'm in the doldrums?

I know there aren't any answers to my questions. Only time will tell. Hell, next week I'll probably be fine and excited about something that I don't even know about today. But in the meantime, damn, today is difficult for no reason at all.

Dickens Sick

If I was a character in a Jane Austen or Dickens novel I would probably be dead. My sister would have been sent for, my children not allowed into my sickroom, and a doctor who makes house calls would have been sitting next to the fireplace in an uncomfortable chair. The curtains on my large canopy bed would be drawn.
For the first time in eight years I actually took to my bed for an illness. I did not leave my room on Saturday. Food was brought up to me at my request. I did not take a shower. I did not read. I slept fitfully all day. The windows were too bright to let the curtains be pulled open.
It was the kind of sick where you see people on TV riding bicycles, eating at restaurants, and riding in cars and you think, I will NEVER be able to do that again. I will never be well enough to leave the house ever again.
And then it was Sunday and I took a shower and rode in a car and went to a restaurant. Then I immediately collapsed into my bed upon returning home and napped for 2 hours from the exertion.
Today is better. I had to take the children to school, again. I have taxes that need to be done before the end of the week and laundry that must be done to try and kill whatever virus attacked me.

Again if I were a  character in a novel written in the 1800's I would be able to convalesce for weeks to get my strength back from the awful fever that I was afflicted with. What ever happened to that? Why is that not permissible anymore? I could definitely spend at least another 2 days in my bed. Is it because no one has servants anymore? Is is because a mother is not allowed to be sick? Is it because the world would grind to a halt with my absence? I'm not sure, but I sure would love to have certain favors granted to me because of my recent illness.

But the world still revolves. I had to buy 2 Katy Perry tickets today. We are all out of band-aids. There are bills that need paid. I need a balance transfer for one of my credit cards (Suck it Discover card. You will never charge me 20% interest). There are books that need read and a dishwasher that needs emptied.

I would totally exchange a 21st century sick bed for a 19th century sick bed, as long as I could bring along a large bottle of Tylenol.

Almost too late to say Happy New Year

I'm late I know. 
I've been busy and today I am overwhelmingly sick. Like too sick to read, like too sick to keep my eyes open in the shower. I think maybe I've consumed too much Dextromethorphan and Guaifenesin.

Can you tell I copied and pasted that?

I could barely get the kids to school today.

So why am I here writing again. Well, it's interesting. There has been more activity here on my blog since I've been AWOLsince November than almost all of 2013 combined. There is this strange little post titled Driving Advice in England that has been getting mucho traffico.

I cannot figure out why. It doesn't really give any advice, kind of just asks for it. It talks about Rick Steves' divorce, but he's not at the pinnacle of love life gossip and I was talking about it 2-3 years after it happened. I just can't figure it out. There were over 1000 page views last month alone.
I even got some mail from Google about my AdSense account. That kind of traffic is worthy of a book deal in some circles.

So I'll be back on Monday to update and post some photos and also talk about my 5 pound weight loss since Jan 1.
This flu could really help with that project.

So stay tuned. I'm still here.

Battle Cry

Sunday night I was having a shitty time. I had the Sundays for sure, but sometimes it's those moments of momentous shitaciousness that inspire greatness.
I went into my head and looked for a coping mechanism that would fit the week and came up with a real winner.
Fake it to make it.
I started Monday with that attitude and it has successfully brought me to this moment where I am faking myself out that I am a serious writer and I have serious fans that read my blog religiously and really wonder what I'm up to when I'm not summarizing my life on this page.
The week took a turn on Tuesday and I started to doubt myself and start to feel shitty again, and then I was like, this is total bull shit.
I know who I am.
I am an architect.
I am a business owner.
I am a librarian.
Children love me.
MY children love me.
I can do anything and there isn't anyone, and I mean anyone, that can make me doubt myself.
Of course I am typing this while "Eye of the Tiger" is playing on my Bose, but regardless of that I really had to give myself a pep talk.
I get down on myself sometimes that I am not living up to my full potential, but then I realize all the things I have accomplished cannot be measured by my small paycheck.
Few people can say that they have a job that they truly love and I should be proud of that and treasure it more than monetary compensation.

So the fake it to make it motto will be my battle cry as I run through the holiday season.
I am totally pretending to be a writer. I am pretending to be the kind of woman who gets on her treadmill every day. I am pretending to be the kind of woman who does not eat handfuls of marshmallows every time she passes the pantry. I'm still having trouble with that last one, because I can't imagine anyone passing up marshmallows.
It's an interesting way to live the week, but so far I like it.

Flagstaff 10 Years Later

So this week marks 10 years of living in Flagstaff.
I often times sit on the toilet and think... I have shit here more than anyplace else in the world.
That's just how I wrap my head around the time that has passed. My toilet seat has seen more of my ass than anywhere else in the world.
Leaving California was easy and hard at the same time. We came to a beautiful place from a place full of opportunities. We left a lifestyle behind to embrace mountain living.
Apparently it suits us just fine because we are still here and still loving it.

This is our 1st Christmas is Flagstaff. I don't think I look much different for 10 years older. Isaak even looks the same.

This is one of my favorite photos of all time. We should go up on the mountain and recreate it this month ten years later. This was our first few weeks here. I still used a film camera and often put in black and white film to try and capture life more dramatically. It worked. This photo to me says a lot about life and fatherhood. Now Isaak wears that Dickies jacket.

 

Thanks Flagstaff. Our kids have had a beautiful childhood thanks in part to you.

Katy Perry and Maya Angelou are Tormenting Me

Let's start off my saying that I've been listening to too much Katy Perry.
I bought the album for my 7 year old. She's a big fan, but she is barely interested in the new album.
I however am listening to it quite frequently.
It's in the mix. I keep listening to the "Recently Added" play list and she's in there with Alt J, Black Carl, and a bunch of classical stuff I got from the library. Oh and I stumbled upon some more movie theme songs. Hedwig's Theme is playing right now.
Mix all that together with me reading a book about immortality and right now anything seems possible.
The world is full of possibilities. I am just choosing to ignore most of them. But with all this inspirational music those opportunities are flying around my head in a menacing dance.
Think Beetlejuice mixed with Edward Scissorhands.
Then my FB/highschool friend, who is participating in NANOWRIMO, posted up a link to the most inspirational quotes for writers and I saw this.
It slapped me in the face.

Yes.
I am in agony.
I know this.
I live with this everyday and it drives me crazy. Crazier maybe.

Not Today

Just a quick little post to say that I'm not feeling it today.
Yesterday I was too busy to write and today I'm having printer issues and dirty floor issues.
These must be resolved before I can dally with writing an impressive post.
Things are percolating.
I'm waiting for them to drip.