Today I had a couple of hours when I wasn’t feeling peaceful. When this happens–and sadly enough, it happens more often than it should–it is almost always for reasons too dumb to verbalize to other humans. And so I would never. I won’t even say them aloud to myself while walking or praying. What is there in my life that would justify anything but peace? I am healthy. I have everything I need plus a thousand million luxuries. I have a loving husband, 4 wonderful children, and family and friends. I mean, for the love of Ramon (I don’t like to say Pete), I have Jesus! I have too much. So I get irritated with myself when I feel this weird unsettled offness. And I try to stop it through a brisk walk or a prayer or anything that seems like it would serve as an attitude shifter. Today I chose to walk. I walked up to Florida College and back. I passed three old men, 2 german shepherds, one truly strange-looking dog, and a person on a bike that surely died shortly after she passed me. There are a lot of older people in my area. I hope to be one some day.

When I returned home, there were 3 or 4 extra messes that had not existed when I left. So of course, I barked a few orders and set the laws in motion. Heads were gonna roll if those messes didn’t disappear quickly enough. And then I decided to take a shower. That was more for others than for myself. After working in the yard all day, I had smelled better.  One can only require so much of their deodorant.  As I was about to step into the shower, the knocking at my bedroom door began. This is not terribly uncommon and a person has to double lock doors to keep out the riff raff. But that’s where this story goes bad.

“What?!” I said, annoyed that anyone was trying to get in.

“Can we come in?” I heard little Beloved’s voice.

“I’m taking a shower,” I said. “What do you need?”

And then I heard it. That phrase that was both the best and worst thing I’ve heard in weeks. Her answer, totally bare and honest.

“Nothing really,” she answered. “We just want to hang out with you.”

Oh man. There I was in my unpeaceful state of “what is your problem” and my daughters, 7 and 9 years old, were knocking at my door…needing nothing but my presence. Just wanting to hang out with me. How long until that is no longer the case? How long until I am begging to hang out with them and it is their tone laced with irritation or impatience?

I don’t know how long.

So you better believe I got clean fast and went looking for my daughters.

I found them reading on the porch swing, and they had left a space just right for me in the middle. I slid into my spot, patted them on the legs, and we hung out.

And I felt peaceful.

In every life there are moments that define us. Moments that stand out as amazing, embarrassing, ridiculous, tender, or painfully raw. And there are moments, both good and bad, that cause you to halt, step away from your actual body, and identify exactly who you are.

That is how my entry began of my other biking story.

Though it seems almost impossible, this same opening statement appears to apply to what happened yesterday. And since that’s true–really, truly, true in the truest sense of truth and trueness–I guess we can all only draw one really true conclusion:

The problem has to be me.

I’m the problem.

I should not be allowed to bike.

And if I should not be allowed to bike, FOR SURE I should not be allowed to bike with children.
Fo shizzle.

So the morning started slowly enough with kids eating this and that for breakfast and us trying to make a plan for the day. We’d been kicking around the idea of biking to the library since before Squishyknickers lost the training wheels. Truthfully, I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. Well, she lost the training wheels on Saturday, took off like a champ that same day, and has practiced here and there for the last few days. So naturally, with 4 whole days of real world bike-riding experience under her belt, today seemed like the perfect day for a long journey to the public library.

That sounded just perfect to me.

And I announced it as such. My “We are riding to the library and having a grand adventure” announcement was met with differing reactions. AG, now 13, was like, “Meh.” Whatever. He could take it or leave it. I know he was hoping to leave it, but I told him to take it and he was cool with that. The girls were both very “YAY” about the whole thing. And then there was Mama’s Boy. He was having no pieces of that pie.

You might be thinking you know what I mean. You might be thinking about some child you’ve seen have a slightly negative reaction to an activity they sort of didn’t want to do. You might think maybe that Mama’s Boy doesn’t like to ride bikes. All of that is waaaaaaaay off. Mama’s Boy DOES like to ride bikes. But Mama’s Boy saw this one coming from across the pond and he called it like he saw it. I won’t recount the entire conversation because that’s no good for any of us. But I will give you his closing statement, which he clearly hoped would heavily alter my decision.

“This is going to be a DISASTER.”

Yeah, ok. Duly noted. Go get your library card.

Several outfit changes and 30 minutes later, we were all in the garage with our bikes listening to MB’s dire prophetic warnings of the end of the world.

And then, we were off.

I picked a route that wasn’t necessarily the shortest, but seemed to me would have the fewest obstacles and passing cars. For the next 8 minutes, it was a completely painless and pleasant bike ride for all 5 of us. Even MB was looking off toward the golf course, doing wheelies, and granting rave reviews and blessings on the neighborhood, the weather, and our decision to ride to the library. But little by little, circumstances began to chip away at the veneer of perfection. And by circumstances, I mean the stamina and biking skills of a 6-year-old who’d been riding for only 4 days. What had I actually thought would occur?

If only someone had warned me.
Oh, wait.

Anyway, some cops drove past us, obviously looking for a car going faster than 25. They smiled at us as they drove by, with that “aww, look how cute” expression. Maybe this is when the tide turned. Maybe Squishy saw the cops driving away and all hope inside her died. Maybe she was hoping for an easy ride to the library and the nice policemen, thinking she was enjoying herself, drove away. I’m not sure. But moments after the police car disappeared from view, she began to putter to a stop. And she stopped like 900 times in the next 15 minutes.

At that point, it was difficult to hear any actual voices or words coming from the real children. All I could hear was Mama’s Boy inside my own head. His prophecies were ringing in my ear like a toddler’s first day with a violin. Sigh.

So I stopped everyone. And first I gave a really convincing pep talk. “OK, everyone. Great job out here. You are looking strong. The library is just around the corner (It wasn’t) and the rest is mostly downhill (ummm…).” Then, I gave a little enlivening water to the little knickerbocker biker and tried to drum up the fever pitch to get going again. YAY! Rah rah library! Let’s DO THIS!

That worked.
For one minute.

My contrived enthusiasm lasted us down one hill, around a corner, and up half of another “hill.” And then she stopped again. This time, she dropped her bike, hunched her shoulders forward, and sat down on the curb.
You guys go on. I’ll wait here.

OK, come on, girl. You can do this.
Yeah, no I can’t. I’ll just rest here for awhile.

And then came the look. And the actual words. There he was, Mama’s Boy, straddling his bike as he raised his eyebrows at the situation and said to me, “I told you this was going to happen. It’s a disaster.”

Dude, this is NOT a disaster. It’s just a thing. A thing NOT riding her bike that we now have to deal with.

I had a solution to this intensifying problem. I was just hoping Mama’s Boy would be on board. I would carry her bike, while still biking myself, and he would carry her. Strangely enough, this young, naysaying prophet agreed to the plan and Squish climbed up on the pegs on his back wheel and grabbed on to his shoulders. I hoisted her bike up under my right arm and took off peddling.

I could go on and on here. Really, I could. I mean, there were 13 pounds of books checked out and a walking visit to CVS AFTER the library visit. But you don’t need me to prolong the madness. On our way back to our bikes from CVS, Mama’s Boy decided again that he was done with the whole thing and exclaimed, “What are we even doing here? Wandering around a city?! Doing nothing! On things that were invented 100 years ago!”

And at that, we hopped on those 100-year-old inventions and headed back toward our house. This time, we took the shorter route. I had some really upbeat thoughts as we headed toward home. This time would be shorter, easier. The rest had done us good. We were hydrated, pumped up, ready. And then maybe 29 seconds passed and I heard crying. Wailing, if you will. I turned around to see what exactly the problem was this time. Had she fallen? Was she hurt? What I saw baffled me. A small girl wearing a ridiculous looking bike helmet was riding her bike with grace and aplomb, while wailing.

Squishy, what’s wrong? I called out.

And still wailing, she answered back: “I’m–ruining–everything.”

Oh, but I had to laugh. This was just pathetic. About this time, my oldest boy who had been over us for quite some time, requested permission to ditch the circus clowns and ride home with some dignity. Beloved, who had not complained or mistepped a single time, followed him.

And there–at a fork in the road by a ritzy little country club–sat a pep talker, a wailing 6-year-old, and a boy who finally said it, “I guess I proved MY point.”

Ahh, good times. Good times.

And in the interest of eating lunch sometime before 2 o’clock, I humbly requested that the boy allow his little sister to again climb up onto his bike pegs and ride home clutching his shirt tails while I rode home with a 16-inch bike under one arm.

Between there and home, which wasn’t too much farther, we got a few offers for rides from kind neighbors we’ve not yet met. This still makes me laugh. If perfect strangers see what you are doing, pity what you are doing, and beg you to allow them to help you, your activity has jumped the tracks. Just FYI.

And also FYI, it was NOT a disaster.
I just need to tweak the process a little bit.
Next time, we’re going to Burger King. Come what may, there’s nothing a Whopper Jr. can’t put a bandaid on…

So.
We moved.
That was a thing we did.
And it took a lot of time and thought.
And I thought about and even premeditated trying to disappear for a preposterously long time. That way, when people saw me again and I told them I had moved–again– they’d say, “Oh…when did you move?” And I could tilt my head quite naturally to the side and say, “Oh, like…10 years ago.” And they would say, “OH.”

This is as far as I ever got with the fake conversation with fake people because (1) I got really bored with it. OH is all I could ever end with. (2) No one cares. (3) I couldn’t figure out how to disappear. (4) I don’t tilt my head and when I do it’s because I’ve run into a metal post of some sort.

It’d be one thing if we’d moved to some place far away like Montana, which actually isn’t a state I don’t think and real people don’t actually live there. Or maybe if we’d moved to Nevada, which might exist but probably can’t sustain life. Or Illinois, where we could have slipped in behind the mafia and made a saucy name for ourselves.

But no. We moved right back to where we came from. Within 2 miles of the house all our babies came home to. Within 5 miles of pretty much everyone we ever knew prior to the initial move out to the country. And when was THAT move? 2 years ago.

We only lasted 2 years.

And by the way, I like dangling prepositions. I have an English degree. I’m allowed to let them dangle. It’s called poetic license.

Anyway.
For two years, we happily lived out in the country. Living the farm life. Living off the land.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
No.
OK, so that wasn’t quite it.
It looked more like driving farther to the grocery store. Avoiding errands I didn’t absolutely HAVE to run. And living off the fat of the Circle K/Shell Station when the toilet paper ran out. .

We loved our land. We loved our 90-year-old quirky farm house where if you dropped a ball by the front door, it would roll all the way to the back of the house by way of the dining room and kitchen. I adored the sound of the sycamore trees when a breeze blew through. There is nothing like the quiet, shimmery tree music of sycamore leaves. I loved looking out across the pasture as the summer storms rolled in. I loved sitting on the porch in the thunder until it no longer felt safe. You could think there. You could throw a rogue football there and not end up in the neighbor’s yard retrieving it. You could shoot arrows at a bale of hay and not hit anything (even the hay, some days). And there, in that old house, I heard the wind howl for the first time in my life. It howled across the front porch like a restless spirit.

What an adventure it was. There was that one season where we successfully grew vegetables. After that, we very successfully cultivated man-sized weeds. We saw wild pigs and river otters. And our finest work was done in raising an unknown number of chickens. Don’t ask me why I can’t number them. Between the hawks, the raccoons, and a teeny, tiny sliver of human error, counting chicken heads became a bit complicated. Toward the end there, which was back in March, there were 6. I could count to 6 with no problem. And I did. Every night.

One night, back in early March, around 2:30 a.m., Beloved came to my side of the bed and woke me from a deep sleep.
“Mama, I don’t know what’s going on with the chickens, but something is. They are making crazy noises.”
I sat bolt upright in bed. I knew there was something bad wrong, because chickens don’t go crazy in the dark without a predator. Chickens are stupid, scared, quiet, and dare I say even polite, animals after dark.
“OK, sit here,” I told her. “I’ll be back.” At this point, I jumped out of bed and ran to the laundry room where we keep a .22, unloaded and without the barrel attached. It’s so safe to have in the house with kids that it’s basically unusable in an emergency.
Or at all.
Ever.
Getting it put together and loaded is like rocking the Rubik’s Cube, which I never once did.

It was dark and late and I was groggy. I have no idea what to do with a rifle even when my brain is fully functioning. But if you handicap me with exhaustion and dim lighting, I’m a total waste of space. I have no idea how much time passed while I was trying to prepare for battle. Maybe a week? I don’t know. I could hear my lil chickens going nuts outside the back door and I was fumbling.

When the gun was finally ready, I grabbed a flashlight and headed out into the darkness. For just a moment I glanced down at myself. Gym shorts. Bare feet. What was I thinking here? Still, though, I had to press on. These birds needed their mama. I flashed the beam of the light around the coop and immediately saw what I had already suspected. A raccoon. He had tunneled under the coop and was inside the enclosure, basically wreaking havoc.

Probably at this point, I should have turned right back around and gone to get the husband. He is definitely better than I am at pretty much everything. But at this point, he was a whole lot less awake, so I continued on. Knowing I was clearly out of my league, I should have stopped to regroup and reconsider my plan.

But instead, I put my shaky finger on the trigger and aimed the barrel of that gun at the raccoon that was staring back at me. I fired. It clicked. Just a click. Shoot. What is this, a toy? What’s the deal? Shoot, it’s on safety. How do you get it off safety? Did I load it right? I should not be allowed to even touch this thing. I fired once more on safety, enjoying a pleasant little click. Finally, I got off an actual shot…which did not come within 7 feet of the raccoon, but sent him and the chickens into hysterics anyway. Well, crum. There went my ONE BULLET. Now I have to run back in and reload. At this point, I’m pretty sure I totally knew I was a failure. I had to know that, right? I had to know that no good could come from reloading. All that was going to do was waste more time. It’s like the 10 monkeys jumping on the bed song. At the end, they all fall off the bed. You know from the outset that this is how it will turn out.

I needed a real plan, since my last one clearly did not work. Oh, I know. I’ll go INTO the coop with the gun, the crazed chickens, the predator, and only one bullet. That’s a good shift in judgment. If you can’t shoot a gun and aren’t wearing shoes…AND if the situation is urgent, you should definitely go into an enclosed space with an angry raccoon with only one bullet.

That is exactly what I did. I went in. Our coop is rather large (because, let’s face it, we care about our chickens), so I chose to go in the second door, rather than the first. The second door opens up into the larger chicken run that we added on so they could chillax and have a greater sense of self worth. When I opened that door and slunk through the opening, I stumbled over the carcass of one of the already-dead chickens. Oh, dear. It was obviously Goldilocks. She was an original Snapp bird, and we had had her for almost 2 years. Moment of silence. Now let’s kill us a raccoon. I could see another carcass across the chicken run from me. P2 was dead. Well, truthfully, it might have been P1. We named our Barred rocks P1 and P2 because we knew we’d never be able to tell them apart. It was one of the ps. And they were good layers. Stupid raccoon.

I took aim. I fired. The crack went off in my ear and the raccoon did not move. OK, seriously, is this thing loaded? How could I Have missed him by so much? He didn’t even bother to looked alarmed with that shot.

I needed a new plan. OK, I got one. Go get the husband. Finally, I had a plan that might work. I ran back in and shook my sleeping husband, who would much rather have had the chickens all die than go out in the night to defend them. He doesn’t eat eggs. And he was highly against us naming these creatures. But he loves us and we love chickens, so by the Transitive Theory from 10th grade geometry, he loves chickens.

Well, Plan B worked really, really well. The husband walked out with the gun, loaded it, turned off the safety, and shot it without all the frenzied flopping, and killed the murderous raccoon with a single shot. Yes. One shot. I guess ONE BULLET does work for some people. Just not for me. And while he was grabbing the dead raccoon by the tail and throwing it off into a far field, I was out in the dark side yard trying to catch the 4 remaining chickens that had escaped my chaos and were now running amuck at 3something a.m.

I have no idea how long it took to get the living chickens put away and calmed down. But when we finally got back to our bedroom, there sat Beloved just waiting, wide-eyed, to hear the end result.

The end result was–ultimately–that this raccoon’s cousins and step-brothers came around for the next two weeks and finished the job he had started that night. By the end of spring break, we owned no more chickens. I had to buy my eggs at Publix like the average city slicker.

And with that, I realized– I AM a city slicker.

So we decided to move back.
Over the eggs.

That’s actually not at all true. There were real reasons, none of which had anything to do with chickens or discontent or my bad shooting skills. And none of which bear any impact on anyone reading this.

But it sounds good to blame it on my failures as a chicken farmer.

You can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the girl, right?

I’ve talked about the lies I sometimes believe. I fight those daily. There is probably another post entirely that I should dedicate to the truths I KNOW to be true, but don’t act on.  One such truth is that the dreading of something is always worse than the doing of it. We put off and put off and put off the things that hang like acid on our stomachs. Taxes, break ups, stepping on the scale, term papers.

For me, this morning, it is Space Bags.

Yes, space bags.

I ordered them from Amazon on the recommendation of two families who travel and said they are life changing. I mean, what could be better than putting some stuff into a bag, applying a vacuum to it, and reducing it’s size by 2/3? Right? For a large family, this is the best thing ever. Except that the box is still unopened. Not a suitcase is packed. Not a space bag is laid out for use. I am paralyzed for some reason. I have an irrational fear of space bags? Maybe.

Maybe it isn’t the space bags at all. Maybe it’s the fact that someone ALWAYS throws up in my car when we go north. Maybe it’s the fact that Typhoid Mary is on meds for Strep and I’m too busy watching the sky for the other shoe to drop to stop and open the space bags. Maybe it’s actually the space bags.

All I know for sure is that when I made my list of what had to happen today, “Clean out the brown chair” was Item #1 and “Clean out refrigerator” was Item #2. Open the space bags and figure them out didn’t even make the list. I’m having some inner prioritization turmoil.

So my plan is, add the space bags to the white board list. CONQUER. Do an awkward victory run around the very clean house before picking up the kids at 2. Blog about how awesome space bags are and how I’m no longer irrationally fearful of them.

Maybe it’s efficiency. I’m scared of efficiency.

Plastic. I bet it’s plastic.

Zip enclosures?

Ok, I’m out.

Ever since Monday night, I’ve been thinking. And ever since I jotted down my thoughts about Rose, I’ve been trying harder to be one. In the wake of memorial services and bad-news emails, perspective is clearer and action is more easily determined. The lines between important and unimportant are clearly drawn.

The trick is to keep going. Next week. April. July. Where will I be in July?

This morning I stayed home with Typhoid Mary–again–because THIS TIME she has strep. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah. I know. Ridiculous. There are two schools of thought on contagion with something like this. Quarantine the poo out of them and clean things within an inch of their last layer of finish. OR…Make out with the germy one and expose yourself and get it over with. I know the first method SEEMS so much better and cleaner and righter. But where’s the control in that? I LOSE control. If I smooch the germs, I am taking back control. I am saying, DO YOUR WORST because we are ready! I am saying that YES, we may get sick also, but we chose this. We didn’t want to stay well. We are doing it on our own terms.

That’s stupid. Nobody does that, but I do like to think about it. It’s sort of a Walter Mitty moment for me and I like it.

Typhoid Mary is on meds and acting completely fine now. Jury’s still out on the rest of the inner circle.

So, back to thinking.

Since I’ve been practicing epiphanies since Tuesday, I’ve been also listening to the arguments in my head against making changes. We all have moments where we are standing at the intersection of Self Improvement and I Wash Myself with a Rag on a Stick. In those moments, there are factors that cause you to go down a new path or stay stuck on the old one. For me, sometimes my remaining stuck is based entirely on the lies I hear in my head and then choose to believe. Here are a few of them:

• This won’t matter. This DOESN’T matter. Oh, yes it will and yes it does. Absolutely it matters. Whether it’s the banana or the cheesecake or the bible reading or the Price is Right or the counting to 10 before putting the child up for sale on Craigslist…it matters. Five minutes matters. Small choices matter. A day is made up of hundreds of small, “this won’t matter” choices. Seven of those days and you’ve got a week. It matters. Make it matter. If you mess up, get up and try again. But try NOW. Because now matters.
• I should start this tomorrow. I’ve already wrecked today, so I’ll start tomorrow. No. This doesn’t work. It CERTAINLY doesn’t work with dieting. It doesn’t work with much else either. Do it now. Putting off a good decision just creates a few more hours of bad ones. I’m creating a hill that’s almost too high to summit. If you are having the thoughts, then start immediately. Procrastinating is risky at best and crippling at worst.
• I don’t have an original thought in my head. Actually, this one is mostly true. But that’s okay.
• Unoriginal thoughts are worthless. Not that many people actually DO have original thoughts. We are all sharing ideas and trying to keep from making the hole in the ozone layer any bigger than it already is. Share those unoriginal thoughts. It’s all good.
• This is permanent. The way it is now is permanent. No. You can change. IT can change. This too shall pass.
• I will someday arrive. I keep this one going in the biggest way. I really think I still believe that I am someday going to pull it ALL together in such a spectacular way that I will be able to recognize that I’ve arrived and sit back and enjoy a utopian peace. It’s a fluid journey. I will keep moving and never arrive. I will never be able to get ahead of the obstacles or predict them in such a way as to totally dodge them.
• I’ll be more useful later. I’m not useful enough in this phase of life. Wait until the babies are all bigger. Gone away. Washing their own armpits. Whatever. Wait. Wait until you are more useful. This is a lie. Don’t wait. You are useful now. I don’t know how. I just know you are. And I am. And I’m figuring out how best to figure that out. If we all look at the Roses in our life and step up our game just a little, we’ll see big changes a year from now.
• It’s too late to do anything about that. There are times when it really IS too late. As in, I can’t send Rose a note and tell her she’s largely responsible for my recent epiphany. However, most of the time, this isn’t the case. So what if I waited 10 months to introduce myself to the older couple sitting one pew in front of me in church. This is a little embarrassing, but swallow the awkward, woman, and just say something (I’m giving up on you). It’s not too late. Befriend someone. Send a note. Let go of something terrible. Make a change. It’s not too late. And if it IS too late on some front, we can still take a step in the right direction. It’s up to us.
• Past failures equal future failures. Where fitness is concerned, this one gets me. I’ve been trying to drop 25 pounds of Typhoid Mary and her sister (who’s only like a day older than her…not really) weight for 6 years now. I haven’t accomplished this because it’s hard and I’m tired and I like donuts and many, many other artificially beautiful tasting things. I’m tempted to give up and think that since it hasn’t happened, it won’t. Ever. This is a lie. Again, it’s all in the hundreds of small decisions in my day. I am not destined to fail.
• I’m good with 5 hours of sleep. Really, I’m not. What happens the next day can vary from drunken knock-knock jokes to grumpy snippiness or bad decisions or snoring in the carline. Five hours of sleep isn’t enough. And since I’m telling myself this lie right this moment, I’m signing off to get a solid 5 1/2. Awesome.

Well, I couldn’t help myself.
I just had to go to the Pets section of the Craigslist community. Usually I have to search through more ads to get to anything that furrows my brow. Today was easy. The first three I looked up were kinda fun. Not life-changing fun. Don’t require that of me now. Just kinda fun.

The first little nugget was apparently written by the nugget himself, a small dog who calls himself Clyde and seems to trust his mother implicitly and have a decent self esteem. He isn’t much on grammar, though. They never are.

my name is Clyde and I am the last one out of a litter of 7. I have  eyes to die for when you look at me. I love to be head and will sleep in your bed most of the night. I am mostly potty trained. I have been with other dogs and cats, but will also take time to sit in your lap. I have been to the vet 3 times and the humans got my shots and had me dewormed. I will be about 5lbs when I grow up. my mom says it is time for me to go to a new home and to leave her side. she said even though she will miss me its time for me to find humans of my own to take care of me. so if you would like to be my new human plz email and find out what you will have to do to have me in your home.

First of all, Clyde, you ALWAYS start a sentence with a capital letter. Always. Doesn’t matter what your breed is or who your daddy is. If you don’t start your sentences with a capital letter, you are attracting the wrong kinds of humans. What does “I love to be head” mean? Head of what? The human’s household? Other dogs? MOSTLY POTTY TRAINED. Oh, Clyde. I have children. I KNOW what that means. That means you are going to pee and poop on EVERY.SQUARE.INCH of my house. Every blanket. Every towel. Every piece of furniture. Either you ARE or you ARE NOT potty trained. Mostly means that people are pretending until the moment they walk into the grisliest scene ever. Been there with a non-furry 2 year old. Still taking meds to forget that one.

So I scrolled down and found the human posting of Clyde’s listing.

he has just the eyes to die for. you will want to take him home when you look at his eyes. (I’m sorry, but I’m just finding this whole eye thing to be a bit creepy. They talk about it a little too much for my comfort level.) he loves to be held and loved on. he is looking for a new home. somewhere he could have a lap to sleep in. he will be about 5 lbs. I am asking a rehomeing fee but he comes with his first shots and 3 vet visits.

Now I know where Clyde got his grammatical skillz from. The “lap to sleep in” bit threw me off. Does that mean I get to sleep sitting up in a chair all night, so that Clyde has a lap? And can we talk about “rehoming” fees? Really, people. Just tell me you’re selling me your dog. Sell him to me and charge me for him. Don’t call it a “rehoming” fee. Did you have to put handicap ramps in your home? Are you having to repaint and recarpet because of all the “mostly potty trained” accidents that were happening?  Indeed.

My final post just reinforced the ugliness of the guinea pig. Horrifying creatures, really.

Cute Male Guinea Pig Looking for Loving Home

I have a baby guinea pig looking for a new home. he is a pretty boy in asking 10 for him.

He is a pretty boy in asking for $10 for him. Um. Pretty boy? Pretty boy is Ricky Nelson. This guy will show up in my dreams tonight. Carrying a splintered club and wearing a backwards ball cap.

There was also a bearded dragon for sale….I mean for REHOMING FEE of $175. He came with everything but crickets, because he had run out that morning. If I’m going to rehome your dragon for $175, I’m for doodle sure going to get me some free crickets. Umm…

On second thought, I’ve decided to call all of these people and offer them some red-pen edits for a small re-grammaring fee. They’ll thank me later after they’ve found their human.

It’s been a strange few weeks. I’ve been in a personal fog that related to organizational things, visitors, sickness, and the fallout of a post contagious house. Life has been leading me around by the nose. I’ve just been reacting.

That’s exactly the problem.
This has always been my problem.
In quiet moments, I have bursts of inspiration. Grandiose ideas of what I can do to serve my neighbor and teach my children well.
Then someone spews something that I have to clean up. Or the school calls with a volunteer request. Or the Today Show comes on. And stays on. For 3 hours.

There’s not a lot that I can do about the spewing part. But most of it, I do have SOME control over. But I’m not controlling it. It’s controlling me.

So at the end of the day, nothing looks any different than it did the day before. At the end of the month, those ideas that were chiseled and colorful and swelling in my mind are now watered down by time and doubt and chores that I won’t remember doing tomorrow. I begin to wonder if the notion ever had any merit in the first place.

And then I forget I ever even thought it.

Until someone dies.
In that moment, it all comes flooding back. In one instant and in the instants to follow, I remember every wish, every thought, every unchecked item on past to-do lists, every regret with total clarity. Total clarity.

I see it clearly. I resolve again to do life differently. I plan. I try. Someone spews. Someone calls. I get tired. I forget.

Blech.

On Sunday, an older lady who was special to my church family, and to me, died peacefully at home. Then, on Monday, another woman, also getting up there in years, took food to the grieving family. This second woman was named Rose.

I don’t know what time Rose got out of bed on Monday morning and I don’t know what she did first thing. What I do know is that at some point that morning, she took food over to the grieving family without being asked to do so. No meal list was posted. No requests had been made. She just went, because that’s who she was and what she did. After that, she took food to two other families and dropped off desserts for our college students. And after all of that, I am imagining that she went home. I don’t actually know where she was when it happened, but that afternoon, Rose had a sudden heart attack and died. On her last day on earth, she was providing for others. That’s a pretty good way to go out.

I’m not sad for Rose or for Mrs. Pickup, because they have finished their race and earned their reward. I’m mostly sad for me. I’m sad because I’m afraid I’m not learning the lessons quickly enough or permanently enough. I can’t just keep rethinking the same thoughts or relearning the same lessons. I’ve got to build on this. I wish I could tell Rose how much it meant to me that she bought my oldest boy a remote control car on his first birthday. Never mind that he broke it in less than a week. She paid attention to him. She paid attention to everyone. I know I said thank you for that gift. But did I really tell her the impact?

I regret that. It doesn’t matter to her now and she doesn’t need anything from me now. But there are others who do. Other words unspoken, other letters unsent, other intentions sitting under a heavy pile of have-tos.

This sequence of events really caused me to think. Why can’t I seem to stay in the driver’s seat? Why do I have intentions that I don’t fulfill? Well, the why part isn’t that difficult. Life moves at a ludicrous pace and most of us move with it with our faces bent toward our smart phones. I know WHY I haven’t mastered it yet. What I need to know is HOW to break the pattern and become a Rose. Or half a Rose. Even a petal would work most days.

(1) I need to stand and observe my day before it even begins. What’s coming today? What HAS to be done? What did I already commit to? I need to try to look at the whole thing from the start and have a firm grasp of the “knowns.”

(2) Once I’ve got a grip on that, I need to ask myself what I can do to provide service or joy today. Who will I see on my day’s path? Who needs to hear from me? What kind of free time do I have and what needs to fill that? If I’m asked to do something, what will I say? If I say yes, will important things be neglected? If I say no, what better thing will I do with my time?

(3) What obstacles are preventing my progress? I need to REALLY KNOW the answer to this one. If committing to unimportant things is causing important ones to stay undone, I need to change this. If a bad habit is standing in my way, I need to avoid that. I need to defuse the bombs before they have a chance to go off. I did this rather successfully last year when the hub was out of town for a month. I realized during the first two week stint that I had accomplished NOTHING. And after looking hard at why that was, I realized I was lonely, was turning on the TV for “friends” and noise and then getting sucked in to whatever came on. So, the second 2-week-stint, I made a rule that I could not watch any TV between 8 a.m and 8 p.m. Instead, I turned on Pandora for music and hammered away on my task list.

This is really how I need to live my life. I can’t just wait for the empty snippets of time to appear and hope to fill them with big important service projects that have been on my mind. I have to carve out the time and make sure first things really do come first. Maybe today I just need to do something small. Something small is still something. A lot of something smalls makes a pretty big life.

It’s so totally NOT brain surgery. But for some reason–for me– it is hard.

So for today, I’m going to try to be a petal. And if I keep my focus and string together enough moments of trying, then maybe someday I’ll be a Rose.

Craigslist Strikes Again
So you want to hear a little sliver of irony? I use and love Craigslist like it alone is keeping me alive. And yet, there is some sort of disconnect keeping me from emailing a person and inquiring about what I want to buy. I have to call the Informinator and get her to email for me with my information.
Oh the irony.
Pretty much can’t be fixed. I’ve tried.
So in the following ad, even if I wanted to contact the person, I couldn’t. I found it funny, though.

Nintendo Ds Lite – $40
I have a red an black Nintendo Ds lite I would like to sell it is in great condition an comes with the charger if interested dont be afraid to txt or call
• it’s ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
post id: 4276468076
posted: 3 days ago
email to friend
♥ best of
I’m not afraid to call or text. This person just didn’t provide a number. Lots of comfort and love…no number. ALso no grammar. Shame on you. Or is it sham on you? See below.

————–
twin beds like new used in guess room
comforters,sheet,shame,and skirt go with it
————-
Oh, I loves me a good guess room. I’ve done some of my best guessing in guess rooms. But I decided not to call on this one because I didn’t want the shame that went with it.
I do not make these up. Promise.