So Much for a Smooth September

I'm distracted by the storm in Florida and wondering how my brother is faring. He was fine through Charley but it doesn't sound like Frances will spare much of the state. He's in St. Pete.

And I'm wondering about my son in a hospital bed in McAllister.

Men.

I will never understand the male species for as long as I live. Particularly the bold male species. It's really no wonder I get more gray hair with each passing second.

My oldest son was on a camping trip this weekend. He apparently will continue on a camping trip this weekend, unless medical personnel inform him otherwise. He decided to pick up a small snake. By the back of the head, as I'm sure a friend of his who I know and love dearly has taught him to do, but it still managed to "scratch" him and it managed to be a copperhead. He called from the Pushmataha Hospital--and it was him for which I am quite grateful! Eased the mind a great deal. Turned out they had no antivenin, so he was transported (do you see dollar signs here? I do....) to McAllister where they are keeping him overnight for observation. His camping group actually WANTS to pick him up to keep him for the rest of the weekend once he gets out. After that kind of shock and apprehension--not to mention the lengthy drive to and from the hospital--I would think they'd want to wash their hands of all of it, but I really should know better. They are his friends and they love him even when he's an idiot, the same as I do. And he really is great fun to have around.

Of course my dh is doing everything he can--long distance mind you--to keep the cost as low (ha ha) as possible. We are not insured. Get him out under 24 hours so he's not "admitted." Don't duplicate testing, etc., etc.. I really, really want to be down there, but ds doesn't seem to need me (I should be used to this by now) and dh doesn't want to incur the expense of a hotel room while we wait out the observation period. Men. And that was before when we thought he'd come home tomorrow instead of going back out to the group, so I guess maybe it was a good thing.

But not on my nerves. Lord it's hard. What am I going to do when he's an adult and doesn't even have to call home to get someone to sign off on the bill??? I guess I won't know till after the fact. Maybe that will be easier. Will I always wonder when I don't hear from him? I'm not that much of a worrier by nature. In fact, I think that sometimes I have a missing worry gene, because I can go quite some time without being in contact with my dh when he's away. I just assume he'll be alright. I'm sure I'll get back to that when all this dies down. I'm sure....?

You really do sign on for life when you enter the motherhood field.

So I'll be patient and pray and if the phone doesn't ring before they bring him home, I guess I'll be grateful. Sleepless, but grateful.

It's interesting that what you don't get from pictures is a feeling.

I have "stood" at this morning's sightseeing spot before. I have been collecting pictures of my passion--the Grand Canyon--for years upon years now. I believe I have seen it from just about every conceivable angle, especially the good ones, like where I stood today. The pictures alone were awesome. I can't tell you how many times I came home covered in the blackness where I spent my days, boxed up. I would come home to the oversized oil that hangs on the wall opposite my door and start breathing again. On particularly bad days, I would take a shower and then pull out my picture albums and vicariously breathe in the clean air and soak up the wide open spaces. The day's tension would melt away faster than alcohol could ever ease it, and I know it's far healthier.

So I spent twenty years saving. I had to save for an overseas airfare, then land transportation two-thirds the way across the United States (I never truly grasped how large America is), and then to this hole in the ground. There are other things I want to see, and I will be here for a month, but that's beside the point now, isn't it?

The air was as I imagined--nothing heavy or tainted. The view was expected. But the feeling. The feeling of being up so high. Of course I should be used to that kind of thing, spending my time in chimneys as I do, but there is a big difference between closed high places and open high places.

And being rained on in high places.

Of course the day I'm to tour it rains in Arizona, which as I understand it is not a frequent thing. I believe the excursion should have been curtailed, but the tour guide would have been out the money that we had pre-paid to be personally escorted. At any rate, we get to the top and within 10 minutes it's raining. A sudden burst at first that passed, but other clouds soon scurried in. (I have to admit it was delightful to watch them. I've never seen clouds miles and miles away and watched them barrel down on me.) Before long it was raining in earnest with no sign of letting up.

There was about six in the party in all. I should have come prepared. I understand that. But I haven't been on the ground 24 hours yet. Late flights and all, you understand. I overslept. No time to watch weather. Shot out my door with tickets clutched and barely made it on time. I didn't bring an umbrella. And the others didn't bring any manners.

My hat worked for a short time until it became rain soaked. At the time I hardly cared, though had someone offered, I'd have ducked under an umbrella in a heartbeat. Even soaked head to toe, I hated to come down. But we did, without seeing all of what we were supposed to. And now I'm feeling something else. My head is stuffy, my throat raw, and I keep having weird dreams when I fall asleep--fever I believe.

No, you just don't get that from pictures. Perhaps I should stick with those.

~*~*~*~*~*

For the record, I HATE THIS. Sorry. Just not inspired. But the prompt was:

Person: A chimney sweep
Object: An umbrella
Place: The Grand Canyon
Theme: Self-centeredness

and I tried! :)

I write because....

Prompt: Set your timer for 10 minutes and make a list; begin each line with the phrase "I write because..."

I write because it makes me feel better. Even though sometimes it's like tasting a bad-flavored medicine, somewhere inside I know I'll start feeling better if I just take it.

I write because I love playing with words. I used to sit out under the tree in my front yard as a child and read the dictionary. My dad still talks about it.

I write because it's something I do well. In the sea of my life where I have to do things I don't enjoy or I'm not that good at, I have this one thing that travels with me wherever I go that I know I can do with skill and competence. Even if that's only my opinion. :)

I write because I love to read. Whenever I read a book that I just fall into and get lost, I am driven to pick up a pen and take myself into my own stories where I can get lost in my own creating.

I write to get people out of my head. They sit there and dance and poke at me at the oddest times--when I should be concentrating on other things--and if I don't get them out I start talking to them and then people really think I'm crazy.

I write to get people in my head who are arguing to stop. This happens most often when I have a work in progress. My characters go on to write themselves in my head, and you know those juicy arguments always pop up when you wish you had waterproof paper and writing instruments. Has anyone created those yet? Maybe that's why there are soap crayons.

I write because these amazing ideas come into my head at night when I can't sleep and they just beg to never be forgotten. The only way for me to ensure that they don't get lost is to write them down.

I write because I have learned things that I want to share with other people. Homeschooling can be scary, but I've survived 15 years of it, and so maybe there's something I can say that will help someone in year five, when the second child is born and she just can't get to the kitchen table to take care of the oldest. I've lived through it and there's no sense in reinventing the wheel.

I write so I can discover the differences in people and appreciate them for those differences. I love handing out the prompts in our workshop and seeing what different pieces come from them. It's always a treat when we share our work and everyone sends a loud cyber applause.

I write because it's fun. More fun than balancing the checkbook or doing laundry or organizing to do taxes or decluttering the house.

I write because I want to sell a book.

I write because I promised my writing buddy I would. :)

Ding, Ding--10 minutes! I did it, Annie! Sorry about yesterday and the day before. :(

Mind like Swiss Cheese

Okay, so you know how this is going to go. It began with a cliche. :-

I'm sitting here at my computer thinking, now I know there's something else I need to do here. What was it???

At least I did think of my dear neglected blog.

My mind is swimming. It's time to do a mind dump on a piece of paper I'm sure to lose in three days (if I'm that lucky). I need structure and order. Actually what I need is that guy on the commercial--is it for Sprint I believe?--with the horn that minds the woman's minutes for her. HONK! time to move on to laundry. HONK! School papers need grading and filing. HONK! Time to study ASL. HONK! Ha! Ha! Bedtime. You don't get to write again!!! But you have your son's tuition bill coming in....Remember that! HONK

No wonder I have a headache. There's just too much stuffed in there and no time to do it all.

I also was not made to clean a house. I have a black hand. My dh says that every plant he's ever tried to grow has died (houseplant that is--his mother gave him several when he first moved out on his own and they didn't last very long). Well every house I've ever tried to keep neat and arranged and dusted explodes. It honestly does. I don't know how--I never hear the explosion. I just wake up in the morning and groan--it's gone off again.

What no one else seems to understand is it's not me that does it. I have proof. Last November when they were all gone for a blissful 10 days, I cleaned the house on the first couple days and it STAYED THAT WAY!!! Until they came home. Three days later and it's starting to unravel. Three weeks later--bombs everywhere.

I know that FlyLady works. I've done it. In fact, my morning routine stayed intact for years after I had to let go of some of the rest of the program (obviously before the steps became firmly entrenched in my brain cells). But sooner or later I find myself swimming under so much backlog that I know I'll drown. I end up wishing someone would really bomb the house. That way I'd have no excuse for not starting completely over, and trust me--I'd be worse than a border guard about letting things in my house. Especially paper. I'd have a trash can on the front porch underneath the mailbox where everything would go except the stuff that just HAD to come inside. I'd get rid of the awful rug in the living room that makes vacuuming a chore and I'd get rid of the coffeetable and have more floorspace. I'd get rid of table lamps and the 50s style end tables and find storage that hides--doubles as something useful, to contain my library books and other things I like having at my recliner (recent magazines ONLY! )

What on earth am I rambling on and on about? I need to write for real. No--rephrase--this is real. I need to write for money. For the first time in my married life, I really do need to pull in some $$$ other than just saving my husband expenses on the business (as in not having to hire a secretary, an accountant, and a property manager.) My "income" doesn't look very good to the Social Security commission, but if I could count what I save this family a year, well---

There I go, rambling again. Does not bode well for a succinct and relevant article, does it.

Wish me luck. And good crackers to go with my Swiss cheese and whine. :)