I Need a New Meme

Source: handmaderyangosling.tumblr.com via Bonnie on Pinterest

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He seems so nice, Ryan Gosling Meme. He’s always supportive and kind, no matter what. And it’s obvious he’s sincere. He honestly loves the mason jar lamp. And then he and I started to get to know each other a little better. And he started to offer to do things for me. Things like hand massages.

And I started to get a little attached, maybe. Like, I may not be pregnant at the moment, but with a guy as supportive and on the same page as I am, I could be.

So I realized that I needed to marry him. Honestly, I didn’t think it was asking too much to marry the nicest internet Meme ever.

Turns out, it totally was.

The light in my hallway went out. The one above my pantry. So I had to try to find food in the dark. It was horrible. And it stayed that way for DAYS. Ryan Gosling Meme never bothered to fix it. I tweeted my frustrations and Jen, being the wonderful friend and graphic designer that she is, sent me this message. And it was the best thing ever. And, I admit, it totally won me back. (What can I say? I’m slutty for the Doctor.)

But you know what? He didn’t change it after I went to bed. And he didn’t change it the next day either.

*sigh*

And I got really kind of mad at him. No, really. You think I’m just writing this line in character with this blog post, but I so totally am not. I was pissed. At an internet meme. For not changing my lightbulb. Thank god I’m cute.

Luckily, just about then, Nathan Fillion Meme came along to sweep me off my feet.

Source: heygirlnathanfillion.tumblr.com via Bonnie on Pinterest

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Only, then I got a little annoyed with actual Nathan Fillion. I mean. If Wil Wheaton can send The Bloggess a picture of himself collating paper AND holding twine, and then every other celebrity on the planet can send her a picture of themselves holding random objects without her even asking them, why can’t Nathan Fillion? And I realize I’m supposed to follow the request by not harassing him anymore, so to be clear: I’m definitely not. This entry is totally about me and how I’m crazy, not about how he’s too good for twine. (Oh, god, what if he’s allergic, but too embarrassed to say so? This changes everything.)

Anyway. Point being that I decided I needed a new Meme to marry. So I started shopping around. First I tried John Cusack.

And he has a point. And I’m definitely intrigued. But there are two things wrong with this. First, he’s making promises again. He’s setting me up to get my heart broken again. Second, it turns out Ewan McGregor makes a way better pensive face.

And he’s realistic about his promises.

And he quotes John Denver songs!

And he’s so suave he can take the blame for something without even promising to fix it.

And he totally wants to French kiss me.

True.

Oh, Ewan McGregor Meme, yes Yes you can!

These things are hard right now.

1. Homeschooling. As the kids get older, I feel more and more inadequate. I don’t have the time or energy or ability to teach them the way I probably should. And I lean farther from unschooling the older they get since I want (need?) them to be able to jump into schooling at some point should it become necessary for our family or should it become desirable at the high school level. Yes, I’m thinking about high school. My daughter turns ten in just about two months, and there’s only one more year of elementary school and lord knows middle school will fly by. At least daily I feel overwhelmed and inadequate staying with homeschooling, but there are so many reasons it still feels right for our family that I really don’t want to give up just yet.

2. Financial concerns. Honestly, this is a point in my life where I am not worried about how I’m going to get through the month. And I feel very blessed by that. But it comes with its own concerns which have me fretting. I recently had to answer a question which asked if I was more laid-back or intense. Haha. I am fucking intense about everything. I am fucking intense about relaxing. So I’m extremely fucking intense about things that make laid-back people intense. Like money.

3. Routines. I like them. They feel good to me. And yet, I can’t seem to be able to follow them. I feel very discombobulated and vague, floating through my days without much direction. I try to create routines, but I honestly just forget.

4. I don’t feel cute lately. A few months ago I felt cute every day. Now I feel frumpy and/or boring every day. I’ve reverted back to just jeans and t-shirts because none of my skirts are doing it for me right now. WTF? And I can’t tell if this is a result of feeling yucky inside, or if I feel yucky inside because I feel un-cute outside.

5. I cannot quit beating myself up lately. I don’t know where this came from because I’d been doing pretty good about loving myself, but holy hell I just take a mental beating all day these days. I try to fight against it, but honestly it’s exhausting to do so, and I almost feel myself sinking, wanting to just give in so I can have some goddamn peace and quiet already. But all of these items above are just fuel for my mean voice and my strength just isn’t very strong right now.

6. I’m just feeling low lately. I don’t want to use the D-word because it feels melodramatic and I feel like I’ve used it too much. Like I should get new problems instead of revisiting the same ones over and over again. And also because I feel pretty happy on a surface level. But my feelings themselves are numbed. I wonder if this and maybe some of Item 5 are fallout from 2011. Like now that emotional things are settling down, I’m feeling the effects. God I hope so. I hope this is situational and will ebb away with time and love.

7. I’m battling two different government organizations over problems that are NOT MY FAULT but which are costing me respectively $700 and my kids’ ability to continue with the same dentist they’ve had their entire lives. So far I’ve learned that even though the government allows you to appeal things, it’s really more of an “appeal” if you get my drift. They write you a letter that shows very clearly they didn’t even bother looking at your appeal and tell you that you are denied. I really wish Douglas Adams hadn’t been so right about the Vogons. It’s really not even funny anymore.

Hopefully now that I’ve dumped, I can work through this and move on. And forgive this lack of an ending to this post. Pretend some really spectacular ending happened. Like pictures! Of my weird family!

Photos and Friends

I’m at a loss for words lately. I think it’s because my camera’s sensor needs to be cleaned and I therefore feel frustrated with it. (Because pictures = inspiration, see?) But it could be simply a lack of inspiration. And time. Definitely time. We have gotten very busy this semester with the kids having appointments, classes, or park days four out of five weekdays. Not to mention all the personal stuff that’s happened like selling my mom’s house. I don’t take as many pictures as I did a few years ago because, frankly, there’s only so many pictures I can take of my kids doing school work, or of the food I eat before it gets dull. ANd when I don’t take as many pictures I have a hard time finding the beauty in life. But short of doing something amazing every day, I don’t know really how to get out of this rut. And sometimes I wonder if I should get out from behind the camera and just enjoy life and I can tell you now that, no, not really. I enjoy life much more when I can photograph it. It’s magic to make the colors pop and save them forever and ever. Sometimes the sky seems bluer when I take a picture of it, than it does when I see it with my own eyes.

But that’s not what this entry is about.

This entry is about Sonja and Noah coming to visit us this week.

We had a beautiful time with them. We hiked, we visited with Elaine, we ate, we stayed up too late snorting over Pinterest and Twitter (well, the grownups did), we had coffee and pancakes and bacon, we ran around in circles screaming like crazed animals (well, the kids did), and we cried when we had to say goodbye (well, Elliott did). Here is some photographic evidence of some of the above.

While we were hanging around with Elaine (after the hike with three kids, mind you) I was too tired to photograph much, but luckily Elaine and Anya put on a show right next to me with the sun positioned perfectly behind them so I didn’t even have to get off my arse to make art. I just fired off the camera and I was pretty sure none of them would come out since I put exactly zero effort into them. And then I got home and saw these:

And my heart was full. Friends, art, bacon. It was a good time. Thank you, friends.

Epic Catch-Up Post! With Exclamation points!

Look! My kids got bunk beds! It is cute! (I am jealous!)

We made pumpkin pasties! (Pass-tee, not paste-y. It makes a difference.)

Elliott ate pumpkin! It is a miracle!

And then Summer and Brandon came over to watch Fire Walk With Me (we recently finished watching Twin Peaks) and we, naturally, decorated logs. Not that the log in Twin peaks had a face, but it definitely had a personality and when you inherit a cordless hot glue gun you tend to glue googly eyes on things.

I thought I was using so many exclamation points because of the sugar high, but clearly I’m not the only one excited today!

And that’s what happened recently! And also that’s what you call lazy blogging!

Money is fake and the stock market is a damn lie.

I feel like I already made that a title for an entry. Am I about to re-rant on you?

After a quick search, it looks like this is a totally new rant. Of course search engines hate me, so who knows, really?

Point being that money is fake and the stock market is a damn lie.

I am SO not a financial-minded person. I think ideally I’d live in the middle of nowhere totally off the grid and grow my own organic internet connection in my own personal composted garden. But since internet connections don’t grow in gardens, and even if they did, I’d kill them all the way I kill all my house plants, I’ll have to settle for living in the city. Also, I’m afraid of the country. It’s so quiet. And there’s no one to save you if you get attacked by the Proctor Valley Monster or a Zoobie.

What was I saying? Oh, right. Money.

So people tell me things like, “But if you buy a new car you’ll lose thousands of dollars just by driving it off the lot,” and I think things like, “But…. But… I’ll have a car that will be reliable for longer and I’ll know its history.” And people say things like, “Oh you definitely want to borrow more now because interest rates on mortgages are so low,” and I just think things like, “But… But… I don’t really want to owe ANY money, actually. Owing money makes me stressed out. And when I’m stressed out, various of my body parts go numb.” And people say things like, “Oh the stock market is doing so badly because everyone is selling right now,” and I just think things like, “But… But… Just create a Facebook page (organically grown, of course) where everyone gets together and decides to BUY BUY BUY and then the stock market will be good again.” And then economists look at me like I am SO STUPID, but really we know the truth. (Truth being that the Proctor Valley Monster is waiting under their bed tonight.)

I keep trying to end this relatively sanely, but my rant is just sending me back to the mountains with a golden fence that makes its own organic internet connection while keeping out the zoobies and pumas and that doesn’t even make sense to me. I blame the free coffee I got tonight at the Toyota dealership after an overly emotional and exhausting week. I’m going to go knit and watch some Downton Abbey to try to recover. I’m so sorry about this post. But not sorry enough to not post it. Because lord knows I should blog SOMETHING.

/Crazy.

Tweets from January

Today I learned that ants can swim.
Jan 3

Margie is trying to make me bet against myself in a battle of laundry. Also she says this tweet isn’t funny.
Jan 4

Today I am grateful for autocorrect on my computer so I don’t have to bother actually learning to spell words like “euphemism.”
Jan 10

Me and Liz Lemon are gonna hang out and eat a mug cake and then watch Secret Diary of a Call Girl. I am prepared to feel scandalized.
Jan 13

My first trip to Fresh and Easy with the Prius and all the hybrid spots are taken by non-hybrids. I wanna rumble.
Jan 16

Ok. I know this is a little belated, but: HORACE GOODSPEED IN LOST WAS THAT ASSHOLE IN THE GREEN MILE? #ThingsTheXFilesTaughtMe
Jan 18

I told Margie to read Island of the Blue Dolphins today. So she did. All of it.
Jan 25

Gordon Gano, I will ALWAYS go to the prom with you.
Jan 28

Another connection that watching the X Files brought me to: the sheriff in True Blood is Larry (as in Darry & Darryl). That was unexpected.
Jan 28

Mulder just said, “Pardon my rubber.” I just wanted to share that with you.
Jan 28

Every time I attempt cow-free mac & cheese it winds up looking like something Lane Meyer’s mom might make.
Jan 30

Thirty-Four

FINALLY.

On the morning of my birthday the kids and I woke up, got dressed, and went out for breakfast. Hit Starbucks (where they wrote me a little note on my lid), and then hopped onto the freeway and headed up to the Happiest Place on Earth. Birthdays are awesome. Disneyland is awesome. Birthdays at Disneyland are exactly what you’d expect: awesomer than I can describe.

I was prepared for the kids to be, well, kids. Tired and overexcited kids tend sometimes to be grumpy and cry-y kids. But the day went relatively smoothly with everyone in mostly good spirits.

The day was also full of firsts for both kids: first time on Pirates (Elliott), first successful time on Pirates (Margie), first time on Star Tours (Elliott), first successful time on Star Tours (Margie). We also got to check out Tom Sawyer’s Island (now inhabited by pirates) for the first time since the remodel. We were all new to Turtle Talk with Crush which I’d heard good things about and I was looking forward to and which totally lived up to the hype. The first person Crush wanted to talk with was Elliott and then he asked to talk to me. Margie didn’t seem to feel left out, but that’s probably because she got to battle Darth Vader earlier in the day (so did Elliott).

The highlight of my day (aside from conversing with a cartoon, of course) happened as we were disembarking from Star Tours and starting our walk down the hallway to where we dispose of the glasses. The kids wanted to go again (and again and again) so I thought we’d swing around and grab another FastPass, but one of the Star Tours castmembers stopped us saying, “I reward people for wearing Doctor Who shirts. Wait here, we’ll get you on the next ride. Allons-y!” To which Elliott replied, “CYBERMAN! CYBERMAN!” (Which may also be French, what do I know?) The moral of the story is Always Wear a Doctor Who Shirt to Disneyland. Actually, I think that’s the moral to most stories.

Originally I’d planned to bring our lunch with us to save some money, but then the eggs were being assholes in the morning and not peeling properly, and the dishwasher was all, “What? You WANT to do dishes on your birthday?” So I was like, “You know what, Dishwasher? You speak with wisdom beyond your years.” So the kids and I wandered into the new bakery at the end of Main Street and – surprise! – they had gluten free bread for their deli sandwiches! And for dinner we found a place in California Adventure that did gluten-free buns for hamburgers. And it was all delicious – even the food within Disneyland, which is impressive, since, in my experience, you must pay the big bucks for food that is adequate while within the confines of the original park. I love how Disneyland is so accommodating in regards to food allergies.

And so, after a long day, we stumbled into our home at almost 10pm and crashed into bed. And it was a good birthday. And you know what? Im going back in two days. With grown-ups.

Thirty-Four is gonna be a good year. (KNOCK WOOD.)