The White Trash of Crafty

So, I'm all signed up and ready to go with the crochet-along on Maybe Matilda's site. There are over 100 people signed up, ready to crochet along together. Many of them have listed their websites & blogs, so I clicked on a few. Big mistake. It is very intimidatingly clear that I'm the poor white trash in-law of this super woman group. Holy Cow! These women sew, can, garden, knit, crochet, craft, and cook... while nursing their babies in one arm and feeding their toddlers organic grape juice they've stomped themselves with the other. I, on the other hand, don't have a single curtain up in my house, would rather throw a dish away than be forced to wash it, and haven't seen the entire floor of my garage since I moved into my house (although I can currently see HALF now, and that's a world of improvement... I WILL park in my garage this winter!). How do these women do it? Do they have jobs? Do they have husbands? Do they sleep? Do they plan on continuing to wickedly toy with us before they take us back to their cyborg colony, 12 galaxies over?

It's enough to give a girl a complex. Sheesh.

Headache from Hades, Part III

I had my follow-up appointment with Dr. Anderson yesterday. We looked at the 2nd CT scan of my sinuses, and what he had originally thought was a marble-sized pocket of infection is actually the size of a ping-pong ball. Yes. I said a ping-pong ball. In my head. Pressing against my eye. He told me he couldn't believe my vision hadn't been affected. Anyhoo... my surgery is scheduled for next week. Thank God I'm getting this thing out of my head. A 6-week headache is not my idea of fun.

Again, my CT scan was awesome to see. The infection kind of looks like a third eyeball. Please keep me in your thoughts as I go under the knife next week. Dr. Anderson hopes he can go in through the nose to take care of this, but if not, he'll have to make an incision by my eye. I prefer no incisions. Call me crazy.

And in case I haven't mentioned it lately, I have the best boyfriend in the world. He's taking the morning off to be with me during my surgery, and he's taking time the next morning to get me to my follow-up doctor's appointment to get the packing removed... ugh. Sounds pretty terrible. I'm just hoping I'm OK enough to go back to work the next Monday.

On a different note, tomorrow is Friday already! I love 4 days weeks with no Monday in them. Tomorrow is our first book club meeting for the year. We're discussing Pat Conroy's South of Broad, which I LOVED. I also love wearing jeans every Friday. I seriously live for this. It's a little sad. I can't help it though. I'm a jeans girl! My jeans, my books, my ping-pong ball of infection, and I all wish you a happy Friday! It's just hours away!

Unfair!

I would just like to state for the record that it is completely unfair how the human body revolts when healthy practices are reinstated into the regimen after an undisclosed amount of time.

That's all I (and my aching back and legs) have to say about that.

Headache from Hades, Part II

I finally got into the Ear Nose Throat doctor today. I hate missing school for doctor's appointments, but I really didn't have a choice. I looked at my preliminary CT scan, and he showed me the exact source of my headache from Hades. The reason my left eyeball has felt like it's going to pop out is that I have a marble-sized pocket of infection (yummy) surrounded by scar tissue that is pressing directly on my left eyeball. It can't drain at all and will have to be surgically opened. Um, yea. Imagine my glee.

Next step, a sinus CT scan and probably setting up the surgery. Maybe the sinus CT will show some miraculous new possibility. I can dream, right?

On a positive note, it's pretty cool looking at a CT scan of your own head. Pretty darned amazing, in fact.

It Doesn't Get Any Easier

Let's say a certain person turns 38. That certain person expects to start getting a handle on this thing called life. But said certain person realizes that she still doesn't have a freaking clue.

* Mother's Day still sucks. And I don't mean a little bit. When you don't have a mom, and you aren't a mom, this day is rock bottom, 50 feet of crap, and then me, to quote Rachel Greene.

* More birthdays don't make a person wiser. I still don't have the answers. I still don't know how to run my life. I still want my mom to give me advice. I still want to crawl in a hole some days. I swear, the older I get, the less I know.

* Despite what my mom told me, there are some things that you can NEVER get, no matter how hard you work or how much you want them. Thank goodness there aren't many things like this, but there are some.

* I've felt very emotionally unsettled lately (can you tell???). If you're the praying kind, I could use a few.

Luckily, I have a lot of blessings in my life. I always need to remind myself of those. I have wonderful friends and love in my life. I have a caring extended family. I have a roof over my head. I have options and possibilities. I have fantastic students that I care about. I have theatre. I have books. I have Hawkeye football. And, I have a sweet little furball named Avery who greets me with love every day, no matter what kind of mood I'm in.

It feels good to release some of this bottled-up stuff. Hope none of you mind.

Even if It's Not What I Would Have Chosen for Myself

Contentment is being able to come to terms with where you are and what's going on in your life, even if it's not what you would have chosen for yourself. Nancy Twigg

A friend of mine on Facebook had this as her status today. Contentment. I'm not there today. This time of year isn't always easy. I really miss my mom and my grandma. Some days it feels like I'm hanging by a thread, and this is one of them. I need to come to terms with where I am and what's going on in my life.

I found out two things tonight in reading the Fairfield Ledger. Two pretty sucky things.

1. The Methodist Church isn't having a late Christmas Eve service. Since my parents got divorced in 1979, I think I have missed this service once or twice in my life, both times when Grandma was sick and in the hospital. It just isn't Christmas to me without it. I know it sounds weird, but Mom and Grandma are there then. I feel them there. I feel my family around me. I need that so much for Christmas to be happy and not be a lonely pit of despair. I don't know what I'm going to do now. I could go to the early service, but honestly, it's a different feel. I don't know if I'll get to that place with 40 billion people there. I could also go to my own church, but it's not really Christmas to me. There's no music. There's no tradition. Christmas Eve is being with my mom. I never went to my dad's until Christmas Day. HER church is my Christmas Eve tradition. Sigh.

2. The school board has requested our first day of classes to be on August 18 of next year. That means my first day will probably be August 13. This is one freaking day after the State Fair starts. I won't get to go at all now, let alone hope for the good old days of Dad having the camper up there for the whole Fair. Tracy and I always go to the Fair. Sigh.

I just feel like my life isn't mine right now... like I'm watching it slip away... every dream and tradition and joy I've had for myself. Going, going, gone. I know it's the holidays. I always get emotional this time of year.

I have many blessings in my life, and I need to focus on those... even if it's not what I would have chosen for myself. Even if it's not what I would have chosen for myself. Even if it's not what I would have chosen for myself. Contentment. Coming to terms. Even if it's not what I would have chosen for myself.

OK. Pity Party over. Tomorrow is another day!