7/21/12

My 20th high school reunion is this weekend.  I didn't go.  My husband is in Turkey and I didn't want to go alone.  at least that's the official story.  It's true, but I also wasn't feeling cute enough to go.  Isn't that silly?  I was feeling old and worn out and didn't want to hang out with the "cute girls" from high school as they looked hot and I looked like the mom of 7.  Which is another thing.  I didn't want to have to hear about the 7 children thing from people I wasn't good enough for 20 years ago and see them judging me now.  I like my life.  Love it.  There are very few things which I would change if I were given that power, and the number of children in my household is definitely not one of them.  I like these children.  Which I'm learning is not the most common thing in the world.  Liking your own children.  Sure, most people lovet heir kids, but when you suggest that they spend time with them, they shudder in horror.  How did we get to a place and a time where people give birth to children and then raise them into people they dislike?  How does that even happen? Are we really that busy? Are we really that lazy? Why?  What is it buying us?  People don't do things for no reason at all.  There's always a pay off for anything we do, so if we are not spending time with our kids then it's because there is something "better" that we could be doing with our time.  I wonder if it's worth it?  I look at the pictures of these women I once knew.  The ones I didn't feel cute enough for.  It's obvious that they are spending their time earning money and working out.  I'm not sure which one takes precedence.  It's also obvious that they aren't spending that time with the one child each one has.  How is it that they all only have one child? Is there some kind of "popular girl" pact to only have one child each? One beautifully dressed, perpetually pouting child?  Because I've seen the Facebook pictures, and if my children looked at me in that tone of voice, I'd be smacking a bottom or two...or seven....but who's counting?

3-24-12

I hat it when I have things I want to say but I don't know how to begin them.  I sit and stare at a blank screen and mentally sketch out the endings, the perfect middle and then write and rewrite the beginning because it just doesn't sound right.  I know what I want to say I just don't know how to get there from here.  I'm like my daughter when she drives a car.  How can we have lived somewhere for almost a year and she still doesn't know how to get home from the grocery store?  The grocery store we go to at least once a week if not more? Is she concentrating so much on the driving that she doesn't even see the signs on the way or is it that she's so distracted by life when I'm driving that she tunes out her surroundings and doesn't pay attention? It's really hard to tell but I tend to think it's a lot of the latter.  For a smart girl she can be pretty clueless, but then can't we all?  Which is funny because that's kinda what I'm trying to write about...how clueless people can be about things.  How they can miss the obvious right in front of them.  It's weird how things can hide in plain sight. We just overlook them because it seems too easy and nothing good is ever easy or so I've been told thousands of times in my life.  It's the things we work for tht we appreciate.  But I don't think that's always true.  Sometimes we appreciate gift even more than the things we earn because we know that there's no way we could get them on our own.  Like the lottery.  I'd totally appreciate it.  Is God reading that?  I'd be a great lottery winner because I know that there's no way I could be a millionaire without the help of the Almighty.  Goodness knows I'm not going to get there under my own steam.  I'm a bit too lazy for that.  Which is probably why I'll never win the darn thing.  God knows it wouldn't be good for me no matter how much I liked it.  I need things to do because I could totally be a curl up in bed eating bon bons girl while the maid cleaned around me.  May be not bon bons though because I'm not sure what they are.  I'd definitely eat cream puffs those because they are made of Yum! And I'd get to the point where the maid had to clean because my cream puff eating butt wouldn't be able to get out of bed, so I'm better off without the money I suppose.  I'd still be grateful though, so He can maybe rethink the whole it wouldn't be good for me thing?  Or not.  I just really need to figure out where to begin this thing which is probably completely obvious like "stop thinking about it and just write." so I will.

3-21-2012

Listening to E read.  It's painful to hear Dick and Jane. Do parents even name their kids Dick any more? I hope not. That would be mean. There are lots of names that you no longer hear.  Like Bob.  Why don't more parents use Bob? It's a respectable name.  Could it be that they no longer want their children to be respectable? They want them to be hot and cool.  Which you would think would cancel each other out, but somehow they don't.  People don't dream about having warm children.  Although maybe they do and they just never say. No one ever says I want a normal kid who will lead an average life of modest accomplishments.  But that's what most people do.  Isn't it? We lead average lives and are well satisfied to live them.  So why don't parents want that for their children?  Why don't they want solid? They want hares and not tortoises. The tortoise won. Does anyone really call the tortoises? They're turtles, aren't they?

Great. The baby is smiling at me and not just eating.  Eat!  I love you too, but Eat! Hurry up because I have to pee and I don't have that whole diaper safety net thing going on around here.

I'm back.  I had to put her down.  Love her, but I can't hold the baby every hour of every day.  I was talking with a friend of mine earlier about the saints and the women who disfigured themselves to avoid marriage.  That just seems harsh to me.  I get not liking a guy, but plucking out your own eyeballs?  That's a bit much.  Then he's just thinking how he dodged the bullet from that crazy train and he moves on but what are you left with? Empty sockets? What do you do with that? Did they have sunglasses back then? No. Probably not. SO the whole world just got to see your flapping lids.  Gross.  I don't need to see that.   That's nasty.  I don't care how holy it makes you, it's gross.  I'm not a fan of grossness at this point in my life. I have 7 children, that's all the gross I need.  I don't even want to know how many bodily fluids I'm wearing by the end of the day, but if I were a petri dish I'd be all fuzzy.

2-4-12

Silver glitter fingernails.  I'm kind in like with them.  Not love.  The nuns in elementary school would always tell me you couldn't love things.  You can only like them a lot.  So I like having silver glitter fingernails.  A lot.  I have decided that life is too short to not have a little fin along the way.  This has been a stressful week and a $1 splurge on nail polish seemed appropriate as a way to treat myself.  I feel a bit guilty about it.  My husband would never have splurged on himself right now.  He's stronger than I am.  He would say that we have all these medical bills about to hit us and we have absolutely no extra money to spend on frivolous.  He's the grown up.  He usually is.  I wish he weren't so much.  I wish he could find the boy that's still deep inside him somewhere.  The kid whose eyes lit up today when he saw the 3D previews for the rerelease of Star Wars.  I heard him OOOH a bit in the theater.  He can take the boys.  If it were the first three movies I would go, but I can't stand that Jar Jar guy.  His voice gets all over my last nerve.  I gets on all of my last nerves.  I just want to tape his mouth shut.  Him and that dumb map on Dora.  I KNOW YOU'RE THE MAP!!!!!!!!!!  Stop telling me so. Ugh.  I hate that guy.  It's okay to hate him.  He's not a person.  You can't love things, but you also can't hate people.  You'd think I learned that in religion, but that was grammar class.  Weird, right?

1-29-12

All that's been on my mind all day is this stupid HHS mandate.  I just want to cry, scream, and shake people at the same time.  What's going on in our country that the Obama administration actually thought they could do this?  What state is the Church in that they just may?  So few bishops have even spoken out.  The people don't know what's going on or they don't care.  Many just see it as the government's dragging us into the 21st century whether we like it or not.  Well, we don't. Or at least I don't.  They have closed adoption agencies because of our insistence on traditional families, and now they are trying to close or force the conformity of our churches, universities, hospitals, charities, etc. and the majority of the Church is silent.  Am I just paranoid in thinking that this is the beginning of a time of persecution?  If we don't comply, then what?  What would the country look like without Catholic institutions?  Do we want to see that country?  If they can do this to us, then what about the other churches?  Which Christian group is next?  They are harder to attack because they lack our organization, something I always thought of as an asset and I still believe that it is, but it's harder to fight something that you can't define which makes Protestants a more difficult target.  That doesn't mean they're not one.  If we can be forced to violate God's laws then so can anyone else.  How sad that I think we have a better chance of getting help from our Protestant brethren than I do from the Catholics in the pews.

1-26-12

Does anyone ever bake the cookie dough in the logs or do we all just eat it with spoons?  It's one of the things I most love to sneak for a snack.  It's the sneaking that makes it taste better, I think.  If the kids caught me it would be gone in a moment.  Instead I let them have a bit at a time ans ration it out.  Like blueberry muffins.  We have to count and divide and figure out how much each will get.  Right now one box of muffin mix will feed us 2 each, but when the baby starts eating we'll have to start using a second box.  The volume of food we consume is amazing.  It's enough to feed a small country.  I think we might be a small country.  If so, we need a flag.  I think I'll put E on designing one.  She needs things to do once she's done with her schoolwork.  You've never seen anyone so determined to learn as our E.  Not even our eldest, who is pretty motivated, ever loved school like E.  She wants to be an architect.  How cool is that?  She loves to draw and do math, so I told her she'd be a great architect.  I explained it to her and she agreed that she could do that.  Maybe she will, or maybe it's just a 7 year olds attempt to please her mother.  Silly girl.  It's very rare for her not to please us.  It's more important that she pleases God and is happy with herself.  Except not really.  She's 7 and needs to please me too.

1-25-12

It's funny the people you talk to on facebook.  All my childhood friends are there, the girls I talked with late into the night.  I don't talk to them.  I chat with the girl who was the school slut, the creepy goth guy, and the hippie vegetarian chick. They're so fascinating to me now.  Why was I so blind to their charm back then?  I love the wry sense of humor, or the wisdom from experience that they have.  The girls who were so cool then are so boring now.  I'll bet they were boring then.  I've learned hat cool is nothing more than the right clothes, a certain walk, and looking too bored to care.  Who would want to be that?  Why is it attractive?  Is it just that they were playing hard to get so we all wanted them to like us?  It's strange because that same aura of boredom is still attractive to me today.  Now, though, I know better.  I see it for the mask of insecurity that it is.  If they want to wear a mask, why wear a bored one? They should find a fun one full of glitter and sequins to mask who unsure of themselves they are.  People get distracted by shiny things.  Like fish.  Fish are attracted to cheap shiny plastic and cool colors so they don't miss the rest of the stuff that's just hanging around.  Funny how the uncool people are the people with the self esteem.  They are also the only ones who can dress like a fishing lure and not look stupid.  It's because they know how tacky and ridiculous they look, but they own it.  They know clothes are just a disguise anyway, so they turn everyday into Halloween.  Which actually makes them the cool kids after all.

1-24-12

Almost 700 hits on my other blog today.  I've never had that many before.  It's been shared and the re-shared all over Facebook.  Facebook is an odd thing.  It makes strangers feel like close friends.  It makes the cooped up stay at homer fell as though she's interacted with dozens of people when the reality is she's seen no one.  We all crave that interaction.  We need other people.  Even the people who don't like people need people.  What kind of people don't like people?  It's the highest form of narcissism if you like no one's company except your own , or the worst self loathing if you include yourself.  That's just weird to me, to hate what you are.  I can see not liking the who part.  We all have things we'd like to change or that we hide from the world.  Like the oozy nasty face of the Phantom of the Opera.  We all have nasty oozy bits.  The trick is to not let then get infected or the ooze will spread.  Who wants to be the spready oozy girl?  No thank you.  I'd rather just stay at home then and not spread my oozy nastiness around. Which is, I guess, how you get to the point of not liking other people.  It's not that they're gross, it's that you are.   Or you're agoraphobic which is even harder to figure out, or was before the internet.  I can see how you can stay home and do nothing now, because you can just order everything on Amazon.  100 years ago you had to leave the house to earn a living and to shop, unless someone else did it for you.  An enabler.  Then I guess you'd need a person after all.

1-22-12

E lost her second tooth tonight.  I kept wondering why her front teeth weren't falling out so tonight I looked.  Her adult teeth are erupting in the roof of her mouth.  There has been nothing to push the baby teeth out of the way.  I used to think that she would be so lovely if the dead front tooth would only fall out, but at least it was in the front where it was supposed to be.  Heaven only knows what this will cost us.  I hate for it to be about money, but it is.  W and L need braces too.  It will be the second time for W, but shouldn't be that involved.  His teeth look worse than they are.  L's should be easy, but he still chews on stuff.  His teeth are chipped and I'm afraid that he will do damage to the tooth surface by popping off brackets with the crap he chews.  I wish I could figure out the chewing component.  Then there's E's toe.  It swelled up and turned black a week ago.  The bruise is gone but it's still swollen.  It doesn't hurt her at all so he hops around and plays every chance she gets.  It's not any better.  We said it was broken or jammed, but the non-improvement worries me.  It could be something worse and I don't know what.  I'm avoiding Dr Google.  He gets me into trouble and makes me paranoid.  I have enough issues.  I don't need to add paranoia to the list of them.

1-21-12

My house is clean for this moment in time, at least the downstairs public rooms.  Whatever you do, don't look in my bedroom.  The baby is asleep in the middle of my bed, but that's the only calm spot.  The rest of the master bedroom is pure chaos right now.  It's the result of the intense cleaning on the rest of the rooms. I'm having women from the neighborhood over to play bunco tonight.  CG is out of town with W camping, and M is babysitting.  That means that the loud and roudy youngest children are all upstairs under the watchful eye of L.  That's a bit like asking the Tasmanian Devil to maintain calm and decorum.  It's a losing battle before it's even begun.  I don't know how one child can be filled with so much energy.  It's almost inhuman the amount of energy that's bottled up in that child.  He eats nothing.  Where does the energy come from?  It's like C.  He's giant and lives on grilled cheese sandwiches.  You wouldn't think that grilled cheese would help a boy grown to gargantuan heights.

1-18-12

I can't believe that I have 3 followers on this blog.  It just doesn't seem like something that people would be interested in.  But people will waste their time reading all kinds of things like that cat blog "I can haz.."  I just don't get that one.  Or Jersey Shore.  How many hours of their lives have people spent watching Snooki or  whatever her name is trying to get laid?  Is that even interesting?  I'll admit to watching Dance Moms though, and my husband doesn't get that either.  These shows are such a waste of time and yet they're like crack, we can't walk away from them.  Although I'm just saying that based upon things that I've heard and read.  I've never done crack so I don't really know how addictive or enjoyable it is.  I have to take others' word for it.  I've only heard about it on the news.  Do you think the news reporters really know what they're talking baout when they discuss things like crack and meth?  I doubt it.  They're just reading the cue cards or repeating what they've heard. Wait.  Do they still use cue cards?  I'm sure it's teleprompters.  Nobody hand writes anything any longer.  That's a good thing for my boys.  Their handwriting is AWFUL.  I make them practice it, and it's beautiful on the worksheets, but when they have to write in real life it's nearly unreadable.  We've been shopping for First Communion dresses for E.  She knows what she wants, but that dress is discontinued. It's hard to fall in love with a dress when you have a completely different picture in your head.  She needs to forget the princess sleeves and move on to something else wonderful.

1-16-12

The baby is all curled up into my lap and making noises like a little snuffling animal.  What kind of animal would that be?  An elephant is what comes to mind, but I can't picture one curling up in his mother's lap.  Do elephants have laps?  A kangaroo does in a way.  Do you think kangaroos get tired of carrying their babies everywhere and ever want to say "Get out and walk, darn it."?  Are animals capable of that kind of thinking?  I would call it higher level, but I really wanted to write "dammit" and that's lower level thinking, I'm sure.

My daughter's friend is coming to visit soon, but she seems torn by it.  I get that.  People grow apart  when they don't see each other often.  It can be awkward at first.  But there are some friends who are at ease from the first moment.  They're the kind I ask for, and if you are fortunate God will grant you one and you only need one.

1-14-12

Getting this in just under the wire.  We have company in our house tonight and we stayed up late talking.  They're here to bring the eldest back to college, except for the boys who are here to visit my children.  It's nice to have a household full of people, but the noise was too much for my husband and he went to bed early with EARPLUGS.   He insists that there's nothing really wrong with his hearing, but I know the truth.  He doesn't hear about 60% of what is said.  I can't tell whether that's a blessing or a curse.  Sometimes I think it would be nice to not hear the commotion that swirls around me but be able to live in blessed silence for a while.  I'd think that the quiet would get boring very quickly though.  I need near constant mental stimulation and the calm would make me insane.  I start turning things on to generate a certain level of noise and distraction when the house is empty except for me.  The lack of noise can be a complete distraction and make me unable to function.  I end up just pacing the house and looking for something to happen.  I'm a bit like a zoo lion in his cage.  Constantly pacing.  Do you think they plot ways to escape?  Do they look at the fences which surround them and calculate the chances of being able to leap over them?  Do they weigh whether or not the razor wire is worth braving?  I feel sorry for the zoo animals.  Zoos are just depressing places to me.  I want the animals to be able to run free and live on as much space as they need.  But then again I want to be able to look at them up close and see how their fur moves when they walk and the size of their teeth when they yawn.  But I want them to be able to roar.  Have you ever noticed how the zoo lions don't roar?  They do when they first arrive but after a while they get hit with creeping apathy and they stop roaring.  They just pace.  Maybe the zoo is too quiet for them after the jungle noises.  Perhaps we should loan them a TV to turn on for sound and company.

1-13-12

Friday the 13th.  It's supposed to be unlucky.  It never has been for me.  Not that it's been a particularly lucky day either, it's just a day like any other.  I think these things are all in people's heads, whether one date is good or bad.  Luck is just in perception.  An ordinary day can become lucky because of one chance happening.  Not that I believe in coincidence.  The things we notice as coincidences are God making himself more obvious than usual, in my opinion.  So I don't believe in luck.  I believe in God.  Who do atheists believe creates luck?  Where do they think it comes from?  Can you believe in luck and still be an atheist?  Isn't it believing in some sort of supernatural power?  We're all created to seek the mysterious unknown anyway.  It's part of our DNA.  They can try and explain away their muddled belief systems but it all comes back to control.  Either you're in control, or you're not.  Which is hard for someone like me who craves control to accept.  Because I think we're created to believe, but also to seek control.  We crave it the way a fat girl craves French fries, and I should know.  Not that I'm fat, but I could lose a bit of weight.  9 pregnancies in 16 years is not easy on the body.  Part of me wonders why to bother with getting back in shape.  My natural shape seems to be pregnant.  That's why I could never be Mormon.  (Other than I don't agree with their theology)  My Mormon friend told me that she'll be married forever and bearing her spirit children for all eternity and I said "No, thank you."  I've been pregnant long enough here on Earth that I believe I've paid my dues.  I'll take Catholic Heaven, thank you very much.  I just want a fluffy cloud to rest on and perhaps a flat belly.  Will we have bellies in Heaven?  I would think so, resurrection of the body and all that. 

1-12-12

I used to think that I was absolutely and un-apologetically a dog person.  I'm not so sure any more.  I like them in theory, but the one in our house at least is not my favorite creature on earth.  I'm not sure I'm a cat person either.  They are aloof and prickly independent, and I can respect that about them, but I once read this news story about a woman who owned a lot of cats.  She died in the bathtub in her apartment, and after a few days, the cats ate her.  I suppose we should just be thankful that they waited until after she was dead.  I don't know what's worse, that her pets ate her or that she was dead a few days before anyone missed her.  How can no one have noticed that she wasn't around?  That could never happen in this house.  I had to lock myself in the bathroom just to write this blog post.  The children are still looking for me I'm sure.  I'll be found soon enough.  It's like a giant game of hide and seek.  The good kind where the hiding place isn't completely obvious.  Or better yet like a game of sardines.  Have you ever played sardines?  Where one person hides and the seekers have to cram themselves into the hiding place when they find the "it" person?  No?  Hmmmm.  Maybe it's a regional thing like bar-b-que.  I didn't even know bar-b-que was regional until the food network told me so a few years ago.  How different can it be to grill meat in Illinois than in Texas?  A lot it seems.  The Texas way is vastly superior, of course.  I don't even have to taste it to know that.  You just have to listen to them talk.  There's something about that Texas twang that lets you know the man can cook.  It inspires confidence in the food.

I've decided.  It's definitely worse to be eaten.

1-11-12

The wind is howling outside the windows. A cold front is coming in I think, or maybe it's just the wind.  We had wind like that in Oklahoma.  We don't in Texas. Where did the wind go? Does wind ever run out or does it just peter out?  Is there a place where wind dies on the map? Where did we get the expression peter out? Is it because of some poor guy? What an unfortunate way to be remembered.  To mean the sad slow end.  Poor Petie.  I had a bird named Petie once.  A parakeet.  He was green and yellow and I got him from my grandparents for Christmas.  What an odd gift for a 6 year old.  I had another bird later.  White and blue.  It died because I forgot to give it water.  I still can picture the sad little face of that dead bird and I just feel enormous guilt for it.  23 years later and I feel guilty for a sweet little parakeet.  I wonder what atrocities I've forgotten.  I'm sure there are people ready and willing to jump in and remind me of the things I did and said.  I don't really care.  Is that awful?  If they've held onto them this long then my apology isn't going to fix anything.  They're just determined to be angry.  I don't understand that kind of anger.  Mad over petty things.  Mad over big stuff, yes.  Little crap? let it go.  Life is way too short.  Look at me.  Half-way through my life more or less.  I haven't done half the things I set out to do in life, and that makes me really sad.  I'm not ready to be old.  Do you think anyone ever really is? Do you think old age just surprises you?  It just creeps up? Or do you think it comes on gradually and by the time it arrives is a welcome friend?

In the beginning 1-10-12

my friend loretta said that she'd like to know more about thae wandering of the inside of my head I'm not sure why she'd want to hear those things, but don't let it be said that I don't follow advide from my friends. so here it is a peek into seven minutes inside the head of an adult with ADD.

people tell me all the time that they don't think that Add is real that it's over diagnosed or that its an excuse to medicate the boy out of children and while I agree with all of that I also know that for me it's a very real thing which is why im writing this blog. please dont expect me to think big thinks here. theres no time for that I'm attempting to type fast enough to keep up with the speed of my brain so very littel puntuation or capitals i'm afraid. i'll go back and fix spelling later. that's hard for me to not fix it immediately. i like to be absolutely clear about the things I write and the things i say to other people which is hard because i cant always remember the conversation im having with people especially if they monopiolize it or speak too slowly. i just cant follow along and will jump in and interrupt in an effort to follow along which is so funny because they think i'm being rude or not listening but it's the opposite i'm foillowing very closely and just jumping in to make sure my mind doesn't wander off which it does too often. damn a typo and then another on typo. its hard to ignore the misspellings and its killing me to not go back and correct them but that's what happens. i keep thinking about the misspelled words up there and want to go and fix them. i like fixing things and making them right it makes it simpler for me to remmenber where i was.  i really wanted to say easier there but i think i've already use it or a detrivative of simple too many times i know i've said brain enough but there's not thesaurus in my head theres hould be but it would take too long too look things up. i can't type fast enough for this. im going to record it tomorrow and then type it out.