It's another one of those walking on the edge kind of days, where the damn of my personal tolerance is about to blow.  It's friggin cold to begin with, we haven't had a day yet that's above freezing, and when my butt thermostat, measured by how hard and cold the seat is in my car, registered at -19, I momentarily thought about dousing it with my hot tea.  My husband, the doctor, well lets just say to honor my rule about limited spousal trashing, is PISSING ME OFF!  Although that statement alone released plenty of pent up frustration of answering the same technical questions over and over agian, I am at a point where I realize I have too much to do and not enough time to do it.  Something needs to give...and I hate that.  My talent of multitasking generally staves off the collapse of the pile of stuff I have to do.  Yes, it would be easier to hide, but middleschool principals and unsettling report cards and bills and patients and band fundraisers and swimming and basketball tournaments are on the top of the list...along side the pile of laundry I've been avoiding because there is truly something dead in my laundry room, perhaps in the wall or a vent somewhere I can't find or reach.  So, I will pray a bit and scream in private to get some endorphins going and then take a moment to breath.

I heard from one of my college roomates today.  I hadn't received a Christmas card this year, which is how I keep in contact with many of those people who have tamed me that live far away.  It turns out it wasn't just because she was busy.  She and her husband of 25 years lost their home in the Iowa floods.  I was so sad for her and her neighbors.  She is remarkably positive though, trying to focus on rebuilding a new future and focusing on the positive.  It is a jarring event, losing everything to a force of nature.  I would struggle with wondering if somehow I deserved the wrath of God, did I cling too much to the material world, thus losing what I never really needed in the first place.  Much can be replace, but when I think of all the mementos of the life I've led, I think that would hit me the hardest.  Perhaps a safe, or other weather-proof container might not be a bad thing...because all we think we have and own is really transient.  Our attitudes and actions are what we have to give to the world and the note from my friend helped me focus, even if for the moment on what is truly important. 

For whatever reason, I'd like to say that it was the subzero temperature, but more probably it's because there is a dead rodent rotting in the wall or heating vent in my laundry room so I refused to go anywhere near domestic chores, I spent the vast majority of Saturday afternoon watching the marathon of "The Real Housewives of Orange County"  I was channel surfing during a commercial and came across this show.   It was like passing an accident where you don't want to watch but curiosity for the gruesome is just too overwhelming to resist.  These woman are abominable, but curiously all in a way that boosted my own self esteem.  These are the grown up mean girls of a John Hughes movie...and they're my age, but thankfully nothing like me.  Even my husband was drawn in and couldn't believe what a strange world they lived in.  Between the boobs and the botox, they muddled through their days eating at restaurants, shopping, going to the spa and drinking.  These women alone seem to keep the entire Napa Valley in business.  Of course they add family drama to keep our eyes from rolling back into our heads, but all in all it was entertaining to watch these shallow, spiteful women who actually believe that the immense wealth they have somehow entitles them to celebrity status.  I wonder if they realize that people with IQ's above 100 are laughing at their shallow attempts to keep young and beautiful and they resemble circus performers more than housewives.  Somehow if California fell prey to its fault line and fell into the ocean tomorrow, I wouldn't feel as bad about it.

Here's what I get concerned about...that we put Obama on such a pedestal that he isn't even human anymore.  That's not fair.  We are in a mess.  We have hope that we finally have a great leader.  However, it shouldn't mean that HE has to fix everything.  We all are responsible for being part of the cleanup and correction for this cultural mess we are in.  It also means that we should be patient and tolerant as we muck through the next few years.  Mr Obama is a man, I believe a good man, but he is still JUST a man.  I don't want him to fall victim to those that will hail someone as chief and then when things get a bit too difficult be the victim under a bus.  This country so often expects so much more of the "one in charge" than they are willing to expect of themselves.  If we all hold ourselves to the highest of standards we will accomplish anything.   I think knowing that we won't expect him to leap tall buildings in a single bound will ease the pressure a bit.  We have to stand now, fully unified together behind our president.  He, has to be willing to stand tall, in the forefront for his country...with the willingness to make those types of moral decisions that only 1% of the population are capable of making.  I pray for a strong heart, for Obama as he leads and myself as I follow and rise up too.  Change is never easy and rarely painless.  If we can agree on that, the road may be less stressful.

What is it with men and the size of their TV?  After months of waring me down, my husband convinced me that is was ok to take advantage of the bankrupcy of Circuit City and buy a projection screen highdef TV for the man cave in our basement.  He got the quote written down like I asked and friday, he went on his way with my eldest son.  When he came in the house three hours later with a different, additional TV, I shook my head in disbelief.  It appears he had to wait two weeks for the projection screen and "got a phenomenal deal on a top brand right off the floor"...that particular store closed once and for all that day...  He didn't bat an eye.  Not to mention it wasn't on the budget, we're supposed to be cutting back, we just had to buy a new stove, etc., etc.  Both my boys were all, "Hey it's not fair, you got a new stove, we should get a TV.  I'm all, "Since when does replacing a broken appliance even fall into the same catagory as a TV...AND BESIDES YOU LITERALLY BOUGHT TWO TVs, equal to three times the amount of OUR new stove.  It is just this kind of logic that has thrown this economy into a tailspin.  It is just   so    stupid.  Since I am the technically minded person in the house, I refused to hook anything up.   So the new TV sat there unused until I was certain they would break it given the bickering that was going on.  When I went downstairs to hook it up, I noticed the manual was still taped up in the bag, when I asked if anyone even bothered to check the instructions they looked at me like I was speaking mandarin and then left the room.  As a parting gift, I blocked all sports/sci-fi/cartoon network/discovery channels...And only I had the code.  Sure I only lasted two hours, mostly because I'm not ususually that passive/ aggressive...but even I act at the lowest level of maturity once in awhile.....

Holy God is it cold!  It was -42 degree F, with the windchill this morning!  My freezer isn't even that cold.  They cancelled school, so my boys got a gift of sleeping in.  At first when they woke to bright sunlight they freaked out thinking that we had all overslept.  I announced the hell had indeed frozen over and the world as we knew it has come to an end...SCHOOL IS CANCELLED!  It was so much fun to surprise them.  Of course my day wasn't cancelled, but I do remember how fun it was to have a rare day off.  Cancelled school also means all athletic activities too, so I DON'T HAVE TO DRIVE THEM ANYWHERE TONIGHT, so I guess even I get an unplanned night of relaxation.  I do suppose I'll have to cook a real dinner, but even that is better than driving in this cold.  It hardly seems feasible that just a few months ago, I was in a bathing suit sitting around our pool, and now it's so cold the hairs on the inside of nose are freezing.  It's time to get the flannel and the wooly's out!  Stay warm.

In a momentary failure of optimism, after our fourth appliance failed in six months...it seems that they are only built to last a decade and since we got twelve years out of them we're supposed to be greatful...I forced myself to stop hyperventilating and take a breath.  Even though I had no time, the universe cut me a break and while swim practice was cancelled last night due to inclement weather, I used it to buy a new stove.  I hated spending the money.  I thought about introducing my family to a raw food diet, but somehow when it's 20 degrees below zero outside the thought of consuming anything cold or room temperature wasn't very appealing.  Of course, true to life it happens in the first month of the year when payments are always delayed due to deductibles etc., etc., so even though we have a new stove I will wait a day to buy anything to cook in it.  But all that is beside the point, because it got me thinking.  It is times exactly like these that we should muster all our strength and allow goodness to prevail, even when it may be justifiable to blow a gasket and apologize later.  Why?  Because I wonder if we really know what goodness looks like anymore.  Is it good to allow someone to vent on you because even though times are tough and they "shouldn't have to pay us because, well isn't that what insurance is for"...even though I had no say in what particular good deal policy they thought they were buying and I secretly know this isn't about me they are just freaking out about more money going out than they have coming in.  Or, should I have gently reminded them that repair and a commitment to good health is always at at cost and that maybe they didn't get as good a deal as they thought with their new insurance company?   I hate that I have to buy a new stove...but it was a good thing to help a local business who is struggling like the rest of the world sell me a new one.  I despise the cold weather, but isn't it a good thing to utilize the time indoors to do something I would have not otherwise have had time to do?  Goodness is there, all around us.  We just have to try hard and see it through the little irritants that cloud our vision. 

When I was in gradeschool, some of my teachers used to call me Sister Mary Frances as a joke, perhaps because they assumed I'd end up in jail one day...which I didn't and in an almost defiant sense, went on to receive my first bachelor's degree in theology.  I always loved God and had faith, just not in the way I was supposed to, I guess.  I always appreciated the irony, though.  I don't think I'm squeaky clean, or overly righteous.  Much of the time I struggle, as I believe most people should, with overcoming my vices.  When I lose my temper, I feel awful about it...not very zen of me.  When I fall short in listening and then understanding, I feel the missed opportunity.  When I think I know the best way and it turns out to be the wrong way, I don't always appreciate the lesson.  When I fall short in loving those who deserve my unconditional love, I do feel tortured by it...not because of guilt, but because in all truth I am sad when it just isn' there and I can't fake it.  When I experience the same shortcomings from others, I often turn it around into self hate...  So, when I think of that childhood moniker, it reminds of one who tries too hard to be good and do the right thing, and then fail miserably at it, but all in a colorful way.  The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but the way to heaven is just as full of the holes caused by approaching goodness the wrong way.  As I hop around my own destructive attempts at goodess, I pray that this road gives me a bit of a break.

Sometimes living in a small town can be like being in a bubble, people tend to know everyone's business.  If you walk the clean and narrow, it's no big thing.  Certainly, I don't mind if people know stuff about my business because I'm pretty open about it.  When it comes to my kids, however, I am a bit more testy.  My youngest son, who gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "strong willed", isn't doing very well academicaly in school.  He test score are very high, but I don't think he's bored.  I think he wants everyone to think he's a bad ass cool kid.  He is beginning to get a reputation, for what, I don't know except that everyone seems to be offering me their sympathy.  For what? I ask.  Because he's in middle school and he is trying too hard to be one of the cool kids?  I talked with the principle today and she too, seems to think the rest of the world is reaching too far to put him at a child at risk.  He loves sports and works really hard in practice.  He loves to hang out and watch comedies, with me if you can believe it.  He does read, only if he is tethered to the couch in our reading room...but he does it.  He talks to me about his day, every day.  But he is very stressed out about all the social dimensions of being a pre-teen.  I kept a diary from the fifth grade on, so I remember how confusing and hard it was during those years.  Perhaps one of the reasons is that both my husband and I try really hard to keep our kids involved in age appropriate activity and never allow them into the sophisticated and often dangerous world of the modern teenager.  If he wants to wear Ax deoderant, fine, but he won't have a cell phone of his own, or email account, or facebook or myspace page...not until he is in highschool.  I don't mind being considered tough, and I don't mind if he acts out and drives me crazy...because I certainly think that's what puberty entails.  At the risk of being a parent who is putting her head in the sand, I did listen to the teachers and am trying a few creative things to help him get his work done...but beyond that I very clearly asked them to let him struggle a bit and perhaps learn a few hard lessons...because that's part of the process too.

Last night I felt more tired than I have in a long time.  I almost dreaded going to sleep because it seems as if another day starts in dreamland.  I woke up, and didn't remember a thing.  Beyond the mini moment of panic, it actually felt good to feel as if my sleep was totally dreamless.  I can't remember the last time that I didn't dream.  I was glad to avoid all the strangers and well, difficult people and situations.  So, today begins the new year for our business and we are excited to bring a new paradigm for health and wellness into the forefront with all the other changes.  Tonight we're talking about chiropractic adjustments and healthy sleeping (I know, totally ironic!)  with upper cervicle subluxations...ie misalignments of the vertebra in the spine...frequent adjustments are important as well as supplementing with valerian root, and calcium/magnesium.  Cutting out caffiene and other stimulants will help as well.  Maybe that's why my dreaming is usually so vivid!  Hopefully tonight I'll be on vacation as well.

I find it difficult, most of the time, to begin a new year with hopes in tact, knowing that my will is more times than not superceded by a greater will than mine.  I would have thought by now that I could forsee the pattern of the future, even if only through my own pattern recognition, a bit better than I have in the past.  I suppose this is what is to be expected by the free falling dream I had so long ago.  I've come to believe that free falling means just that because holding on to tangibles may procure certain death.  Of course I tell myself that what I believe to be tangible in the moment turns out to be as illusory as thin air.  There are few things that I embrace as solid, of course even they give way to the new things I learn about them every day such as love, God, faith and my life's purpose.  I suppose when I and my understanding of them are the changing factor it is best to free fall into them with the belief that power greater than I knows what to do.  So far, I am still here and walking down the road more or less unscathed with a certain amount of wisdom I guess.  To say I know more demands I will definitely walk with more caution, if this last year taught me anything it is that when I get too confident about understanding something I end up being flung with poo, metaphorical or otherwise.

 

Dream land more than supports me in free falling.  I am travelling down a highway in a seat, no car, just a seat.  I am wondering how I can move down a highway in just a seat, I can't contol it and while I turn around full circle I continue in a straight direction until I pull off into my husband's home town and somehow arrive on my feet again.  My journey, my purpose is invisible to me and seemingly not controlled by me but I do arrive, in tact to the familiar, if not my own.  Much is not my own these days.  The unrest of those I see in my dreams continues, with the purpose of simple learning to apologize to one another for when they tread on someone else.