What Keeps Me From Blogging

The following events in the Dahlby household have kept me from blogging . . . pretty much all month long.

-- We were gone for the first 4 days of January . . . and the last 6 days of December . . . so it took me about a week just to get caught up at my house. The place was a wreck. But it's not any more . . . well, it's not as much of a wreck. I did clean up Christmas. Some rudimentary cleaning has been done. But then I got the bright idea to work on changing out some of my framed photos . . . and that lead me to rearrange some of my photo arrangements on my walls . . . which means I need to get out touch up paint for newly exposed holes . . . and decide which pictures should go where . . . so it looks like a framing store exploded in my office right now. A project I will finish in the next week or two (I hope). Like I said, it's not as much of a wreck around here as it was about 10 days ago.

-- Oh, yes. And we had a 'snow day' in the middle of my trying to recover and get the house in order. I was so NOT happy to see the snow here in Georgia two Fridays ago! The girls did not go to school . . . so I lost an entire morning I had hoped to devote to claiming back my house. At least the dusting of snow was pretty.

-- Kate got a stomach flu. She threw up for 2 days. Then I got it. Then Meg got it. 5 days later, we were on the mend.

-- Lots and LOTS of laundry generated by aforementioned stomach flu. Isn't that the PITS of a stomach bug? Not only do you have all the bodily fluids to deal with, but stinky laundry piles up quicker than you can imagine. The whole time we were sick, I listened to the constant drone of the washer/dryer.

-- Swimming lessons, Dance class, scheduling preschool conferences, scheduling dentist appointments, scheduling OBGYN appts (just a check up, calm down!), scheduling appointments with my therapist. Scheduling datenights for Jim and I, arranging for babysitters, rescheduling things that get put off due to stomach flus and the like. In other words, normal, day to day life.

-- Took Meg to "Pigtails and Crewcuts" and whacked off her hair. It was long and stringy . . . and, though I desperately would love to have a little girl with long, flowing hair, I got tired of fighting Meg daily to let me fix it. If SHE doesn't want to wear pigtails and braids, then what is the point in having long hair? It looks darling short, anyway.

I turned 32. Whoohoo. Happy Birthday. Not exciting at all, really. Hardly anyone called, and I got one card in the mail. Jim took me to a really great dinner at 'Canoe' here in Atlanta, which I enjoyed very much. And then it was January 12th, and another birthday had come and gone.

-- I got to take Meg to see "Annie" at the Fox Theatre, my birthday gift from her (and Jim). The timing of the "Annie" outing fell right in the middle of our stomach flu -- but thank God neither she nor I were sick for the 4-5 hours of our event. (I got sick later that night, and Meg took it on the following morning.) Meg LOVED it . . . and I will admit it was something of a 'dream come true' for me. I always adored Aileen Quinn singing "Tomorrow" on the film version of this story . . . and as a little girl, I watched it so many times, I think I had convinced myself that I wanted to BE an orphan like Annie. To have my little girl loving the same songs as I did when I was young -- it is priceless. Taking her to see "Annie" was fantastic. The only sad part was when I had to put my hand over her mouth to keep her from singing along . . . and no, I'm not kidding. She was totally belting out "Tomorrow" -- right along with the little actress on stage -- until (after asking her several times to quiet down) I finally had to use my hand to mute her. She was a little put out by it because she desperately wanted to sing along. How I love my Meg!

-- Arguing with my dad. That has taken up a lot of my January. I know that I don't talk about it much -- at all, really -- but my dad and I don't always get along. We bicker about all kinds of things . . . mostly things that I don't want to address here. We go through phases where we are the best of friends . . . then something happens and we can't seem to see eye to eye on anything. We are in one of those bad spots right now. Just thinking about it makes me mad/angry/sad/upset/fed up. You would think that with everything we have been through in the last 9 months, we would not have a single thing to be angry about . . . that we'd just feel lucky to still have each other. But it's just not that way.

-- Jim's birthday is coming up next week, so I've been trying to get some stuff together for that. Planned a little surprise for him, and I'm sending him and Meg to a Georgia Tech basketball game in a few weeks. I like the idea of doing 'dates' with our girls for our birthdays. I sure enjoyed my "Annie" date, and I hope Jim enjoys the outing to the game.

-- New babies. Meet Olivia and Hunter, born to friends of ours in late December. If you know them, you'll be getting their announcements in the mail sometime soon . . . I'm working on them in my 'free' time :)

-- And last, but not least, a general feeling of . . . well . . . discontent. Blah. I don't know why, but I'm in one of my funks again. It's like I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop, the next big thing to happen. I can't explain it. Jim is gone and will be gone a lot for the next several months. Hell, I should just quit kidding myself and say that he's always going to be gone a lot. I'm lonely. I'm not working, which is OK with me . . . but I find myself bored sometimes. Motherhood is great -- but it can be a pretty boring occupation at times.

Anyway -- for whatever reason -- this 'funk' has me staying home, watching TV, reading magazines, and being a complete bum. I don't want to be on the computer, so I don't feel like blogging. I didn't even log on to Facebook last week -- not even to see my 'happy birthday' wishes (from a bunch of people who would not have remembered my birthday if it weren't for Facebook, anyway). I have not been making plans with anyone because I get so tired of having to always cancel plans when someone get sick, my dad needs me, or Jim's travel schedule changes. So, the January Funk has settled in. I hope it's short-lived.

And that, my friends, is just a tidbit of what keeps me from blogging.