The Revolving Bedroom Door and Presents Left Behind for Mama.

No, not my bedroom. Pretty sure the man would take issue. This one belongs to the oldest son. The quest for independence. Coming back home when friends decide they don't make good roommates. Leaving again when the idea hatches with another friend. I'm thinking there was an actual lease signed this time. Maybe it will last longer than 3 months.

After the great discovery of incompatibility, the boy moved back home about three weeks ago. Not sure why but the dirt bike came home first. Somehow, it was more important than the bed, clothes, or anything else. It was also then that I discovered there was no helmet to pair with the dirt bike. But that was another ride on Mama's Crazy Train all together.

When the boy left, there was a lightening fast round of musical bedrooms amongst the other kids. And that's how my former office/adopted girl's bedroom became my walk-in closet. When the boy told me he was coming back home-with only about 72 hours notice-there was really no option other than the basement.

The great cavern under the house. The dumping ground for all things we can't bear to part with. The home of the ever-expanding-take-over-the-world piles of laundry. And the home of the multiple litter boxes. There just really isn't a lot of space down there. At least, not that's very organized.

But being 20, that didn't bother him. He shoved things aside, dumped his bed in the space created and dumped all his clothes on an old love seat next to the weight bench. And that's where everything stayed until he decided to move out again last weekend.

Except when he left, all his laundry stayed behind. Being the wonderful mother I am-or believe myself to be-I graciously started the wash/dry/fold process that his clothes likely hadn't seen since his initial departure in March. It was impossible to determine what was clean and what was dirty, he said. After sorting the piles, I believed him. And wanted to go sanitize in a tub of bleach. It's no wonder the basement had taken on a new odor.

He had an entire load of work clothes that looked and smelled like they'd marinated in cow shit for a week in the hot Idaho sun. Yes, cow shit. Of course, it was all mixed in with all his other clothes. I've never used so much detergent and hot water washing clothes in my life.

Oh the things we do for our children. And my washer still hasn't forgiven me. I swear it tried to lock its own door when it heard me coming the other night. Honestly, I can't blame it.

Footnote: I was going to include a nice photo procured from Google to help illustrate this post. In looking for just the right one, I've managed to ruin my desire for breakfast. You're welcome.

Just why...

Once again, I've been mired in the great time-suck known as the internet. And all I can wonder is why? 

I guess just sitting on the lid is too difficult.

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A hair necklace? Seriously? I wear one everyday, and it's not near that stylish. I'm forever picking hair off myself, so why would I accessorize with hair on purpose?

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Why would someone design this? And furthermore, why would anyone buy it?

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I really need to go find something meaningful to do with my day...

Today's post sponsored by the letter P

As in perimenopause. The totally unwelcome and inevitable change overtaking so many of us. The condition that has made my last week a trip through hell. I do my best to ignore the symptoms most of the time; there's no sense concentrating on what you can't change, right? But this week has been a real bitch. With a capital B. So I figured I take a fresh look at the symptoms and see how I'm doing.

First, I needed a symptom list. I found a good one at this site. Just a quick top 10 type thing.

Let's see how I compare, and to be fair, this will be FULL of TMI:

10. Irregular periods. This is totally what touched all this off today. After rising entirely too early for a Sunday morning, I felt that all too familiar "gush". You ladies know exactly what I'm talking about. After a quick check of my period tracker, I was not surprised to see I'm a full week early. Looking back through my history, my cycle has gone anywhere from 23 days to 65 days.  At one point, I skipped a month entirely (hence the 65 days), sending me off to the store in a panic for a pregnancy test. Not a comforting thought when you're approaching your mid-40's.

9.  Problems sleeping. Did I mention I was awake early this morning? I can't fall asleep at night. I wake up on average of 598 times during the night. I'm either awake before the birds, or sleep through my alarm for 45 minutes. I nod off at my desk at work. I operate best on a full eight hours of quality sleep a night. Something that hasn't happened in approximately 1,825 nights. I'm not joking.

8.  Hot flashes. Sweet Jesus, what happened to my internal thermometer?? I'm just thankful they are usually at night. Needless to say, I no longer have to question if it's time to wash the bedding.

7.  Mood changes. Let me just say, The Enterprise entering Warp Speed has nothing on me. Olympic-class sprinters take lessons from my family.

6.  Low libido. Sex? Fuggetaboutit. More often than not,  my husband has a better chance of winning the lotto or being struck by lightning than enjoying the pleasures of my company.

5.  Vaginal dryness. I suppose it would be easier to verify this if I were actually having sex regularly. I'll have to get back to you on this one. Or maybe you'd rather I didn't.

4.  Weight gain. Particularly in the tummy area. I haven't had a pooch like this since immediately post-birth nearly 17 years ago. Thank the stars for spandex. Even last year, when I had my first - and hopefully last -  painful bout with diverticulitis and lost 10 pounds in nine days, I didn't lose the balloon on my tummy. And, sadly, the 10 pounds has found its way back home.

3.  Tender breasts. I'm convinced that somewhere in the chain of hormonal monsters, there is an ethereal being that holds a voodoo doll representing my boobs. Every.Damn.Thing.Makes.My.Boobs.Hurt. I finally got smart enough to decrease my caffeine intake, which did help. But they routinely remind me they are there and not at all happy to be in a bra/out of a bra/exposed to wind/exposed to the shower/within arms reach of my husband/or hanging out above the hot stove. Nothing makes them happy. Nothing.

2.  Urinary incontinence. This one just pisses me off. All of the symptoms do, but this one in particular. I don't dare sneeze, cough, or even blink my eyes most days. I know where every bathroom within a 100-mile radius is, because if my bladder isn't dripping like a broken faucet it is screaming at me that it has to pee, RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

1.  Migraines. In the last week, I've been under the influence of a headache for five days. Several of those days, I've been riding the very thin line between a ridiculously bad headache and a migraine. I've given serious thought to trying out the ancient procedure of tripanning. For those unfamiliar, here is a reference. Honestly, it sounds a lot more pleasant than the constant pain of a headache.

In closing, I'd like to address my ovaries directly, since they are charge of this delightful death march.

Fuck you, and the Fallopian tubes you rode in on.

The Latest in Dating Ideas

My heavy lifting work at the office is done for the day and I need a break. A quick check of the news will do. As usual, once I get past all the nightmarish headlines of the day, I can find the rare gem stories that brighten my day. I look forward to them to provide me with mood-lifting feelgoodedness (yes, today, that is a word), or LOL hilarity and stupidity that I can't, in my wildest dreams, relate to.

Today, I found the latter.

While scrolling through today's offerings, the headline, "6 Perfect Date Ideas," caught my eye. You can read it for yourself here. Trust me, after 23 years together, fresh dating ideas are a necessary thing. Sadly, many of our dates in recent years have involved dinner and grocery shopping, dinner and Home Depot, or the always popular dinner and coma.

The complete title after the jump said, "6 'perfect' date ideas from a man's perspective." That should have warned me off right there. Ok, ok. Yes, guys can come up with great ideas for dates. When we were dating and still living in WV, hubby once took me to the top of a mountain so we could watch the sun come up. Major points for that one!

Anyway...

The first suggestion... rather than going out for a meal, spend the day at the farmer's market picking out all the best organic goodies, then go home and cook dinner together. This guy is kidding right? My husband wouldn't know fresh romaine from a rutabaga. Nor would he eat it for that matter. And cooking together? Um, no. We are not compatible in the kitchen. And I don't like sharing my kitchen knives.

Another suggestion is to go swimming. This is a bad idea for a number of reasons. One, the river closest to us isn't known for being swimmer friendly. There are really nasty currents, lots of things under the surface to snag on, and, at times, it's really fast moving. There are, however, a few places off the river that are nice and calm, and quite popular with the water crowd. In other words, crammed with freakin' people. The local pools are also crammed with people, cutting down dramatically on the romance factor.

But the main problem? I have big issues with water. Specifically, water of unknown depth and unknown occupants. I'm absolutely certain that Jaws lives in every available body of water on the planet. Except swimming pools, because I'd be able to see him then. Hell, he'd probably find a way to come through the garden hose, just to scare the shit out of me. But oddly enough, I love to go water skiing and tubing.

But the suggestion that really made me laugh was to go jogging together. I nearly had a coronary just reading it, then had to pick my laughing self up off the floor. Neither of us are runners. Period. I've never been a runner because I can't seem to coordinate my breathing with the motion and tend to resemble a fish out of water. And hubby? After a hard day at work full of physical labor (the kind that would totally kill me), the last thing he wants to do, however late he gets home, is to go for a run. While he is physically as strong as an ox, something like this would make his body implode. He doesn't even like it when I park further than five spots deep in a parking lot. I'd park at the way end and walk if I had my way. And no, he won't go on walks with me. Apparently, I walk too fast. Even in heels I'm told to slow down.

I guess for now, date night will continue to be a trip to the store, fighting over power tools in the garage, or falling asleep on our respective couches because we're both too lazy to pick up the remote and find something good to watch.

Mistress of Poor Planning and Improper Footwear

Yep, that is me. Quite often, actually. It's fortunate that I can accept this about myself and move on.

I decided today would be a great day to wear the first skirt of the spring season. I love maxi shirts, summer dresses, and maxi dresses. They hide my somewhat chubby legs and work beautifully with flip flops or heels. What I failed to do was check the forecast before getting dressed. I picked one of my favorite skirts; it's a denim-colored maxi, embellished with embroidery and some beading. The only shirt I could find to match was a sleeveless summer sweater, so I added a light sweater for my arms. Good thing I did.

The forecast indicates a high temp in the mid-70's, but I have my doubts. It's still only 59. It's also very cloudy with a decent chance of thunder storms. And the wind is blowing. Just the perfect day for a skirt! Thank goodness the skirt isn't blessed with an abundance of fabric, otherwise the wind would have it up around my ears.

But I'm still rocking the look because - hello - I shaved my legs and painted my toenails! Just don't look at my legs too long; I don't want to be held responsible for snow blindness.

Of course, I'm wearing flip flops. It is springtime after all. But my feet are freezing. As we speak, the heater under my desk is blowing.

My family tells me often that I'm always wearing shoes that are completely improper for the task at hand. Like flip flops when it's cold. Flip flops when I'm in the garage using power tools. Flip flops when we are climbing around rock piles looking for landscape possibilities. Flip flops while splitting firewood. Heels when we head off on an impromptu shopping trip that will last hours. Flip flop heels to walk the dog.

In my defense, I've never injured my feet, never lost any toes, though I have had a few splinters while shoveling tons of wood chips, and I did manage to dribble polyurethane all over my left foot while working on my closet project the other day. It took me awhile to clean it off and stop my toes from sticking together. Small details really. And the wood is looking marvelous, so it was totally worth it. And hours in heels while shopping? Come on, I'm a professional woman and can rock the heels all day long! I just wear flats the next day.

So for today, I will stay indoors with my heater on. And I will look awesome while doing so!

Of Biceps and Bleach: My Awful Bathroom

I may have mentioned in the past that I hate my bathroom. If not, let me just say, I hate my bathroom. For those in need of clarification, I. HATE. MY. BATHROOM.

Yes, it's an old farm house, so bathrooms weren't architectural beauties back then. They merely had to be functional. So my bathroom is functional, and that's about it. Only it's not entirely functional. There is no exhaust fan. None. There is a window, but we'll get to that in a minute.

I'm totally in the minority in my house when it comes to showers. I'm the "get in, get it done, get out" type. Maybe once a month I will just stand in the hot water for a bit. Seriously. I get peeved if I have to stand in there long enough to shave my legs.

My guys, however, would stay in there all day of the hot water held out. Literally. I've gone in after one of their showers and walked into a man-made weather system, complete with precipitation. Water literally drips off the ceiling. Back to the window. Do you know what happens to wooden windows with that much humidity in the room? They swell. What happens when a window swells? That's right, they don't open. So the sage advice of opening a window when you don't have a fan doesn't work for me.

So little by little, drip by drip, cloud by cloud, my bathroom dies a slow and painful death. The stranglehold of mold and mildew begins.  Until I go in with bucket, scrubbies, bleach, and gloves and do battle. It's ugly work. It stinks. When I'm done, I'm usually hallucinating. All because I refuse to let my bathroom look like this.

In good news, a miracle happened and the window dried out enough to open. But I'm going to have to post an armed guard in there to prevent folks from closing it again. I'd like to keep it open until the snow flies next winter. 

And that's what my afternoon is going to be today. If you don't hear from me again, I'll be stretched out in the tub talking to unicorns and smoking a piece of carpet. Wait, I don't have any carpet...

The Never Ending Story

Back about six years ago, we bought the house we are living in. Six? Seven? I'm honestly not sure as I'm horrible with dates. I should ask my step-mom, she writes down EVERYTHING. She can tell you when our litter of kittens were born, when I had my tubes tied, when and why Dean got his first round of stitches, probably even when I last made meatloaf. But I digress.

We bought an old farmhouse. It has great bones. That's about all that doesn't need some work. I'm serious. The people who rented before we bought it had no respect for the house. AT ALL. The original and beautiful hardwood floors have paint on them. Actually, everything had paint on it when we first moved in. And not properly applied paint, in case you were wondering.

One of the bedrooms on the main floor was painted in the most nauseating shade of Pepto-Bismol pink. Complete with a badly painted castle on the wall. The other bedroom on the main floor had a black and white city skyline motif, complete with the Batman symbol. Upstairs, the smallest bedroom had virulent colored hand prints, signatures, senseless quotes, and what looked like Rorschach tests all over. The other room was a vomit-inducing shade of pink/purple/mauve, with lilac trim. Sense a theme here?

It was also filthy. Not your everyday filth either. I'm talking right up there with Hoarders filth. As in, we rented a dumpster and filled it three times. No they didn't take their shit with them. They up and left for parts unknown.

Anyway, the point of all this is...this house needs lots of work and TLC. I'm fairly certain when we finally get it all done, one of us will expire the very next day. It's really going to take that long. Why? Because we decided we're going to do all the work we possibly can ourselves. It's cheaper that way, and this stuff doesn't come cheap. And there's always something to buy that's more important than household cosmetics. Like buggies full of food and an endless supply of new shoes for the teenagers that insist on growing.

The first thing we did, after the massive clean-out and sterilization was to blitz through and paint everything white. I've now decided I despise white walls at a level that is unnatural and quite possibly unhealthy. They are boring. They are lifeless. And they show every speck of dirt, glob of dog slobber, smear of whatever is on my kid's hands that must always touch the walls, and every gut pile of every swatted fly and spider to ever have the misfortune of entering through the door that never gets shut. Yes, I scrub and clean, but it's like it's some sort of haunted house where whatever splotch of evil-induced blood is removed comes right back the next day. It gives me nightmares.

I have had a mental list of all the things I want to do to the house. Some of those lists even get written down. Then the list gets lost, and I forget all my great ideas. Last night, about 1:00 am (thank you insomnia) inspiration struck. I'll find an app, get it all written down and saved on my phone. Voila! I finally settled on Tasks+. One of the drawing points in the description was that it was intuitive. Pfft! If it's intuitive, shouldn't it know exactly what's in my head and transcribe it verbatim? Apparently not.

Anyway, I now have a nicely organized list of what I'd like to get accomplished this summer. Realistically, I'm going to have to quit the job that's going to pay for all this just to get it all done. It might be worth it to get rid of the harvest gold and avocado green linoleum that's still in my kitchen.

Preaching to myself

Fair warning: This post may find me using words not fit for polite company.

I truly believe that anger will get you nowhere. Anger closes the door to a happy life. Anger makes it difficult to get along with others. I remind myself constantly that getting angry at the behavior of others doesn't accomplish a damn thing. It just ruins my day. And life is too short for that.

BLAH. BLAH. FUCKING BLAH.

Well, today, I'm angry. I'm pissed. I'm full of vexation, animosity, indignation, fury, ire, rage, and resentment. I'm going to throw either a cat fit or a hissy fit. Thank you, thesaurus.

I got up today prepared for the normal course of cleaning. By normal, I mean the usual things one does to keep a neat and orderly home. Some laundry, dusting, sprucing of the bathroom and kitchen, sweep and mop the floors.

Instead, I've found myself (once again) cleaning up the messes left behind by others who live in this house. Messes that I shouldn't have to fucking deal with. Food messes. Drink messes. Dishes where they don't belong. Clothing everywhere. Garbage here, there, and everywhere. And why is it so flipping hard to refill the damn ice trays?

I haven't even started on what I wanted to accomplish today, except to start the laundry. And even to do that, I had to fold numerous loads left by someone else because they needed something washed, but can't possibly be troubled to fold a damn thing. No, instead they shovel it into baskets, stomp it down into a tightly woven mess of sweatshirt arms, blue jeans legs, and socks. Which is, of course, the perfect cat bed and now should really be rewashed because it's full of hair. Tough shit, y'all, you're getting hairy clothes in your piles.

I'm pissed so my stress is up, adrenalin is flooding my system. My normal case of the shakes has turned into my own awkward version of the Harlem Shake. Which I fail to see the humor in, but that's another post entirely.

You know the phrase seeing red? That's me right now. I can't even stand my own level of anger right now, that's how bad it is. I want to throw things, break things, throttle the people that do this. But that would just make MORE of a mess to clean up.

I'm going to go clean and continue preaching to myself. Maybe after a good long lecture, I'll calm down. I will say, it's a damn good thing that no one else is home. I'd either be headed to jail or the mental ward.

Oddities and peculiarities: AKA Me

Not sure why this popped in my head the other day. Just a few random facts about me.

1. I detest pineapple, honeydew, and cantaloupe. I have learned to tolerate strawberries, but only if they're swimming in whipped cream. With cake, too.

2. I have a hard time driving Fords. It is impossible for me to adjust the seat for leg length and get the proper arm length to the wheel. It's one or the other. I had a Bronco once, and that one actually worked for me. Then my husband wrecked it. Chevy fits me very nicely, which is handy since I married a Chevy man. My Ford family threatened to disown me. As an aside, my uncle's Miata fits me PERFECTLY.

3. I have a favorite insect. Yes, I do. I love praying mantis. They are highly revered in my garden, in the yard at work, everywhere. If I'm out for a walk and find one on the road, I will move it to the safety of the nearest yard. Or bring it home with me. If I find an ootheca (that's an egg pod) on a movable object, such as a piece or firewood, a rock, a stick, I immediately find it a safe haven somewhere. I've also watched the babies hatching in the spring. It's fascinating.

4. I have sat for hours watching the mollies and platies in my aquarium, trying to see them give birth. I've never caught it live, but still get giddy when I see new babies swimming about. I have seen them mate; rather cool to watch.

5. I've been known to wear flip flops in the dead (and frigid cold) of winter. Yes, my feet get cold. No, I don't always care.

6. The bathroom in my house holds mystical and magical powers. It is where the men in my life have all their major epiphanies and call me in to talk about it. Thankfully, it's only when they're in the shower, not when they're doing other things.

7. One of my husband's nicknames for me is Spock. I tend to be a little literal and analytical at times.

Now it's time to go do a little Vulcan mind-melding with the washing machine.

Challenge

So, I'm setting out to challenge myself. To write more. To get the blog going again.

And holy crap have things changed around here at Blogger. It's going to take me a week to find everything. Maybe even longer.

In the year I've been remiss on writing, there are blogs I no longer follow and new blogs I've found that I absolutely love.

Honestly, I'm a little concerned that I don't remember how to do this thing.

I'm such a bad blogger.

When I started blogging, I swore to myself I would post daily. Well, at least a couple times a week. Obviously, that never happened. And once I started on Facebook, my blog was just a memory. Should I make a resolution to blog more? No, I'd just break it. But maybe I can increase my blogging without the resolution.

Maybe.

Probably.