Beware of 4 a.m.

One should beware of online activities at 4 a.m., especially if one's wallet is in reach.

This morning I woke up early, as usual. What wasn't usual was that I woke up at 3:30 a.m. Normally "early" involves a 5 in the hour. I had acid reflux (again) that was so bad I'd gross any of my 2.7 readers out if I was to describe it, so I'll refrain. Suffice it to say, it was miserably bad - bad enough that sleep just wasn't going to happen again. At 3:45, I heaved myself out of bed.

Since I was in a class all day yesterday, I logged on to check my work e-mail - in case anything specatularly interesting had happened that I just might have to deal with before I showed up at 9 a.m. While I was at it, I decided to browse for a few things we need, that we've been putting off because I just didn't have the energy to go to a furniture store and "browse."

So I browsed online. Read reviews, compared prices, clicked on buttons and made mathematical calculations in my sleep-addled brain.

By 4:30 a.m., my online shopping cart contained one full-sized mattress, one full-sized box spring, one bed frame and one 5.0 cubic foot chest freezer. Grand total: $530, plus tax and delivery ...I think the 5 showing up in my total (instead of in my awakening hour) was what did it ...

I woke up enough to realize that the delivery charge was more than it would cost us to rent a pick-up (or cajole a neighbor) for the day, and Himself and the two teenage boys inhabiting our house (Grover and Nephew) this week are more than enough manpower to move a full-sized bed and a small freezer into the 70s palace.

Never mind though. That wasn't enough to stop me, I reserved it for in-store pick up on Saturday.

Beware of 4 a.m. - suddenly your excuse for not buying Himself corn dogs (lack of freezer space) will no longer fly and your guests (and Grover) will have somewhere to sleep besides a trusty air mattress.

And your bank account will still be stinging.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Is it considered child labor if I turn the garden watering over to my toddler?

Because lately she's been asking to "Go 'side, Mama. Water plants." (Go outside mama, water plants). And hey, that sounds like motivation to work to me. Since motivation is a word in my vocabulary that has been swallowed up by pregnancy, I'd say "go for it" except the watering can is as big as she is.

I made a couple of mistakes in planting a garden this year:
1. I failed to realize we don't own a hose.
2. I failed to realize our outdoor water source is on the FRONT of the house. The garden is in the BACK of the house. It means I have to lug a watering can outside multiple times to water things.
3. I bought drought-resistant plants. Normally a fine thing in the high desert country of The Frontier. Except June has been anything but dry. I've lost a few plants to overwatering thanks to Mother Nature (though it has reduced the number of days I've had to lug the watering can out repeatedly.
4. I underestimated the ease of growing basil. So far I'm 0 for 2 on basil plants.
5. I have magic mint ... one day it looks fabulous. The next, well, it looks rather sickly. Even Woodstock noticed and called my dear plant "icky" on one of its less-than-healthy days.
6. Fourth of July tomatoes, even when planted at the appropraite time apparently don't ripen by the Fourth of July when the sun has only shown for one of the last five weeks. The plant has lots of tomatoes, but they are just as green as the regular tomatoes.

I think I'd best leave the gardening project to next summer, when I can actually see my feet, can kneel and/or bend over and when the weather is back to normal. In the meatime, I have six thriving (if not ripening) tomato plants. We may be eating fried green tomatoes and cilantro this summer, but we'll at least be eating something homegrown.

Shiny New Life

I am known, for better or worse, to surround myself with drama - typically not of my own creation, though sometimes when it gets really dull, people wonder.

Through the last six months of "head shrinking" - I've realized that I am an adrenaline junkie. I don't know how to function in a mode that is not the physiological equivalent of "fight or flight." I have done a fair amount of reading about the "chronic state of phsyiological stress" lately. In short, something has to change.

In the past several months, I've made strides to begin healing the frenzied anxiety-black velvet curtain of depression nonsense. I've worked at not caring so much about some things. I've tried to assuage the guilt of not saying "yes" every time - or doing everything I should be - because "should" is subjective.

And the drama continues.
* I was forced/chose to change jobs ... it was a good decision, but has come with a month's worth of continued drama, lawyers, legal advice, covering my rear end, analyzing and discovering that much of what I thought wasn't actually true.

* In an attempt to gain control and reduce the anxiety, we moved. The Hobbit Hole was up for sale. I couldn't continue to focus on healing and reducing the almost-daily panic attacks when I was worried about what parts of myself were exposed when people came through the house or how clean it was. But moving in and of itself, even just next door, was enough frenzied nonsense to send me into orbit. Especially since it happened CONCURRENTLY with the job drama (timing was not planned that way).

* Son came for the summer. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a pleasant experience. But he came the day after I quit my job, two weeks before moving day. One can only imagine the insanity.

With the maelstrom of changes, I haven't done so well at focusing on those things I need to be focusing on. There is no routine, no settled contentment. Little things turn into bigger mini-dramas overnight.

We set up the washer/dryer yesterday. The washer was a breeze compared to last year's set-up. The dryer, however, required an unplanned trip to Home Depot, 2 hours and a fair amount of "what the hell were we thinking" conversations between Himself and I - the two people least equipped to be involved in any kind of appliance anything on earth.

This morning, Baby Girl woke up with diarrhea of epic proportion. I could smell the result halfway down the hall, before I even entered her room. It was 5:45 a.m. I finished the batch of laundry I'd started before bed, picked her up (no way even she could sleep through that stench), cleaned her, changed her and dumped her back into bed with Himself. I embarked on another three loads of laundry - because, of course, the soiled pajamas, changing pad and towel were not even close to being able to be washed together.

And ... a batch of jam. JAM?! On a work day? When Baby Girl has caused an additional mess to clean and there is laundry in various stages of "done"?

But I wanted to learn and do new things this summer. Canning was part of it. A perfect storm of house capable of providing off-season storage space for the massive water-bath canner and free fruit provide the opportunity. Still, jam on a work day morning was out of the question - except yesterday's drama prevented me from doing anything with the two boxes of apricots taking up the microscopic amount of floor space in the kitchen ... and the top ones, from the top of the tree, were rapidly ripening beyond the point of no return.

I had no choice.

New job. New house. Annual visit from Son. Baby Girl's first encounter with diarrhea. Canning. Picking. Installing appliance(s). Packing. Unpacking. Waiting a very long time for a paycheck. Full-time work after a three-week hiatus. Five loads of laundry in 12 hours. Preparation for next week's camping trip. And on and on and on.

Even the shiny new life is wearing me out.

Somebody Stop Me, Please

This domestic stuff is getting to be a little insane.

So you already know about the water bath canner (which arrived yesterday!) ... but the new (to us) house is, well, doing things to me ... as in making me think of things my domestically challenged (and loving it) self normally shudders about.

This morning found me out picking apricots off the tree that is half in the Hobbit Hole's yard and half in our new yard. Our former landlords very generously offered whatever apricots we wanted. I'm not going to argue. After all, apricots are food - food that I NEVER buy in the store, as they are ridiculously overpriced.

Not only that, but Himself was out mowing the lawn at the same time. I stood, bathed in the warm sun, trying not to die of grass fumes (grass = asthma issues) and thought, "we're turning into quite the domestic palace these days."

Of course, the thought of how odd Himself looked mowing the lawn also made me laugh. In nearly 9 1/2 years I've known Himself, I've never seen him mow a lawn. Mostly because we didn't have one to mow. To be fair, Himself has never seen me mow a lawn either, but I am highly allergic to grass, so he's likely to NEVER see me mow a lawn.

I went back inside and thought about all the little "extras" I needed to organize the new space.

Things are getting weird around here.

Things You Never Thought You Would Hear Me Say ...

I bought a water-bath canner this morning.

As in something to can fruit in Mason or Ball jars and put on shelves.

As in something ... domestic. Not only that, but something domestic that conjures up images of the small town, monochromatic mentality I've run from my entire life.

Except, it has to do with food, so one shouldn't really be too surprised.

Blame it on my dad. When I went to visit while on maternity leave last fall, I brought down a carload of apples. Dad, my sister and I spent our days making applesauce, apple juice and apple jelly.

None of us had canned before. We had "peeled, cut and stuffed," but Mom always did the "work." Since his retirement, however, Dad has become quite the domestic diva that none of us ever quite achieved ... canning, pickling, dry packing, making bread ... and signing Mom and himself up for a preserving class.

I think I was in a post-partum delirum, because I found myself thinking, "this is fun!"

Now to figure out how to recruit Dad to come visit when the canner arrives. After all, I'm not so domesticated as to slave away in a hot kitchen mid-summer with an apron on all by myself.

Not yet, anyway.

Because Someday I'm Going to Run Out of Underwear

There are times when I wish that we were a little handier.

Sara: Himself, we need to get the washer/dryer hooked up no later than Monday night.

Himself: I work late all week.

Sara: Um, not a good excuse.

Himself: What's the rush?

Sara: Baby Girl is on her last clean pair of pajamas. She has also ensured that nothing I have worn in the last week can be worn again, by marking her territory with snot. And someday I'm going to run out of clean underwear. (Not to mention the fact that the move has meant I have gone through rags and dishcloths like 5-year-olds go through toilet paper).

Himself: Oh.

Is it just Himself or do men not think about the ramifications of not having a washing machine, especially when one's house is inhabited by an infant and a pre-teen boy? Seriously.

To Himself's credit - he got out of setting up the washer/dryer last year, but he heard about all the horror stories, so he's a little worried. Then again, last year the washer/dryer was set up by a blind guy and a pregnant woman. The washer is 250 pounds and involves small parts. You have to give us some credit.

Wish us luck.