Things are finally starting to mellow out a bit.  In fact, as I look at the future that (at this point) seems stretched in front of me, it looks very quiet and restful.  

For the present time, Eric has a regular work schedule of working 10 hours Monday through Thursday and having Friday, Saturday and Sunday off.  He’s exhausted and it doesn’t help that temps have been over 100 degrees in Sacramento where he’s working.  As much as he hates it, it’s nice to have a good paycheck every week and a somewhat regular schedule.  It will be a long, long time before we get caught up and some of the damage – such as with our credit report – won’t be repaired for a long, long time.

It has been a very stressful time and I know that is why I have been particularly sensitive to people fussing and complaining and making big drama over such relatively insignificant issues.  It did, however, show me who my true friends are, as well as showing me where I should no longer be investing my time.  That’s good info to have.

I am going to be taking other steps to simplify my life and make things quieter in the coming days.  I can feel The Universe leading me toward a more restful, less drama-infused life and I am gladly following.  I spent a whole lot of time focusing on what I thought was the “right thing to do” and ended up sacrificing beyond what I could give with love.  We all know that’s a dangerous place to be and leads to resentment and bad feelings. 

Now I am, as a particular Native American group used to say, “taking back my power eggs.”

It’s funny because in my spiritual tradition, summer is the time of activity and work, but this year, I am reeling in the power strands so I can focus my attention elsewhere.  The time will come again when I pick up the gauntlet and beging community service again, but for now, that time has ended.

Tomorrow is the Grizzly Flats 3rd Annual Independence Day Parade.  We have decorations for the kids’ bikes, quads, etc, and we look forward to seeing all those happy faces.  Afterward, Burger Night is “excellent bbq chicken” night instead of burgers.  No Queens of Grizzly Flats this year, at least not on the float.  Couldn’t find the dress I wanted to wear, our truck for the float fell through and it was turning out to be a struggle to organize it, so I am following the guidance of The Universe and letting it go for now.  I’ll still wear my tiara (I have light up ones this year, so how can I possibly not wear one?) and priss up a bit, but finding another sequin prom dress and waving from a parade float just doesn’t feel right this time.

After tomorrow, I’m done for a good long time.  Back to being Invisible Mom again.

Speaking of Momming, the summer is going so exceptionally well.  The kids are overall being great.  The boys are throwing some testosterone around and I’ve had to remind them a few times that in this pack, I’m the lead dog, but for the post part, they’ve been lovely.  Delena is away on her trip with her bio-dad.  I’m sure she’s having a great time.  She calls regularly and checks in like a good girl.

The GH Fan Club Weekend is in 2 weeks and I am determined to go.  Airline tickets are purchased and I am trusting that the rest of the details will work themselves out, probably on the fly.  

Joe and Jeff finally got to have a few long conversations and are getting along famously.  Both are over the moon happy to be in contact and I am happy for them.  They are planning a trip later in the year to meet in person and hopefully, for Joe to meet the rest of his father.  Between me and Jeff, he now has 7 brothers and 2 sisters.  It will be different for him to be around family who actually looks like him.  Jeff’s wife saw the photos I sent first and phoned Jeff to tell him that there was no denying Joe.  Evidently, he not only looks exactly like Jeff, but also like Jeff’s next oldest son.  I have a feeling this is going to fill up some holes in Joe’s life and give him a wonderful place in which to be family.

Eric is eager to hear from the Highway Patrol and learn that he is moving on to the next level, which is the background investigation.  He was told it would likely be any time up to August 1st, but he is antsy and hoping for an earlier resolution.  The process is so long and Eric is not, by nature, a patient man.

My mother has been on my mind quite a bit lately as I learned that she and/or my dad evidently intercepted a huge number of letters and phone calls in the year between the time Jeff left and I married Paul.  How different all of our lives would have been if I’d known those phone calls and letters even existed.  I don’t doubt that this is true and they did that one bit.  I’m sure they were on a mission of honor and thought they were doing the right thing, but it still is slightly jarring to know I was manipulated to that degree 32 years ago.  Jeff had missing pieces he could fill in for me and I had missing pieces I could fill in for him.  It’s left me reflective and introspective.

Eric has been a champ through all of this, very supportive and understanding.  Part of it is because he is so involved with his own world of working and mining and waiting for news that he barely knows what’s going on around him.  He’s very, very happy for Joe, however, and knows how hard we have all been working to make this happen and what a miracle it has been that it did happen.  Had I not contacted my brother briefly through MySpace a month ago, he would have had no idea how to get in touch with me when Jeff found him last week.  Miracles, I tell you, are absolutely real.

That has been on my mind a lot lately too.  If this is possible, happening in the way it did, then anything is possible.

…and after the weekend, it has been quite anticlimactic so far.  Joe phoned Jeff and they spoke just long enough for things to be awkward and then Jeff had to get back to work.  They have arrangement for another conversation tonight.  I’ve done my part and other than any further questions Joe has or connection facilitation, I think my involvement is pretty much done other than wishing I could be a fly on the wall for the conversations.

I finally did sleep very deeply last night.  The dog, who apparently has a bladder the size of a pencil eraser, managed to pull me out of the abyss around 1:00 AM to usher him outside to pee.  When he was finished, I spent the rest of the night on the couch because it was cooler downstairs and closer downstairs.  Do not underestimate the comfort potential of my couch.  I stretched out on every couch in every furniture store in Placerville before buying this one 4 years or so ago.  The next thing I knew, Eric came downstairs exclaiming about how it was 6:00 PM and he had to get into the shower.  It took me a few minutes to figure out what that proclamation had to do with me and why he woke me up to tell me and I remembered my wifely brownie point efforts of putting on his coffee (for many years now, so it’s not as though I forgot something recent) and making his lunch to take with him.  I reluctantly dragged my wet sand-comprised butt off the couch and got his sustenance for the day ready to go.

Since Delena woke up, I have been helping her get ready to leave for her trip into Daddyland and Nerdland (the Anime Expo).  She has completed the last of her costume creating and repairing and is now fully into the packing process.  I get nervous any time she flies alone.  Thank God for cell phones.  She will be back next week.  It’s always lonely without her around.

I got notice from the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service that they expect me to be issued a refund on July 13th for the money they erroneously snaked on April 28th.  I will be paid an eye-popping $1.39 for interest during that time.  My hope is that it gets here in time for me to leave on the 16th.  That would cover a good bit of my share of the hotel costs.  

I believe that for me, personally, this is going to be the best GHFCW ever.  My friends and I have made some non-GH-related fun planned away from the hotel, so it won’t be all work the whole time we’re there.  I will likely only attend the Kick Off Party and the Main Luncheon this year.  Time is short and there is visiting, off-duty stuff to be done.  I only get to see these people once a year and this is the first time that we have actively taken time for ourselves together apart from the GH activities.  Both those plans and the GH fun are eagerly anticipated.  

This morning after Eric left for work, I got back onto the couch to watch my recorded episode of “Weeds.”  ”Weeds” and “Rescue Me” I tend to try and watch before they get up in the morning.  Both shows are doing much better this season than last.    No word yet on when “Big Love”  will be back, but “House” is reliably set up for September.  Only 5 more episodes of “Kings” left ever (I have not yet watched Saturday’s episode), which is heartbreaking because it is such an intelligent, well-written, interesting show.  If someone does not quickly come up with a new show for the incredible Ian McShane, I will very likely start taking hostages.  First “Deadwood” and now “Kings,” but hey, at least “America’s Next Top Model” and “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here” have time slots.  Wouldn’t want to upset the intellectual apple cart by leaving any of the well-considered, thoughtful shows on the air (grumble grumble).

After watching “Weeds,” I caught the end of “Becoming Jane,” the pseudo-biopic about Jane Austen.  I felt tremendously girlly in that I found it interesting.  Along about the time of “The Lake House,” I was force to admit to having a good sized passion for chick flicks when I previously thought I was dismissing them.  Silly me.  (Self-delusion again, Kathy)  Eric and I watched “Gran Torino” and I liked it more than he did.  Both of us found the ending to be disappointing, but it was still quite good.  ”The Bucket List” was another movie we caught and I thought it was wonderful as well.  As soon as he gets a few hours to relax, we have “Frost/Nixon” from Netflix.  I want to jump in on watching “Nurse Jackie,” but I have already missed a handful of the episodes, so I might wait until it comes out on DVD.  Dianna is enthusiastically recommending “Leverage,” so it’s on my list as well.

Time to go curl on the (aforementioned comfortable) couch to watch the rest of OLTL.  

The past few days have been quite a ride.  I feel like it has been a power crash course called Relationships 303.

No, it’s not like that at all.  I feel like I’m getting a DEGREE in relationships and that I’m having to take all of the required courses at once with power crash courses going on everywhere I turn.  Yes, that’s more like it.

1)  Poor Eric, I swear.  That guy is having a tough time and trying not to have a tough time, God bless’im.  His “What is My Passion” short list was down to making money by gold mining (a very lucrative business in these parts if you have a gold claim and he has several) and/or the Highway Patrol Academy.  As I mentioned before, he made it through all of the preliminary parts and now it’s out of his hands until they decide whether or not he can proceed on to the background investigation portion.  Since the background investigations are very time consuming and costly, they only do it for those candidates who they fully intend to hire.  He would get an intent to hire letter by August 1st.  Between now and then, it’s waiting.  

He has been working really hard with the gold mining, but results have been minimal because you have to dig and dredge and dig and dredge until you are down to the “bedrock” of the river and that is where the veins of gold run.  Until now, it has been the preliminary work and they have seen all of the signs that gold is going to be where they think it is going to be.  Last week, he worked a day with a man who is a friend of one of his partners and at the end of the day, the guy misused the dredge (pulled the air house up out of the water, reversing the air flow) and blew their whole day of back breaking work out the back of the dredge.  He got all set to work the river with two other guys on Saturday and their dredges were both screwing up and they spent most of the day on maintenance.  He went to another spot on Sunday to mine with his partner (the spot that was closest to paying out and is actually his partner’s claim way up on the American River), drove 2.5 hours to get there and found that the lock on the gate had been changed and he couldn’t get in.  He ended up having to turn around and drive 2.5 hours back home, only to have his partner call that night and say that he’d found gold.

Eric is understanding that this could be a redirect and that the gold thing isn’t for him, but he’s still disappointed.  He’ll keep working on the mining, but he’s starting to think that he’s being shown it’s not his path.  He’s handling it well, but still, he is disappointed.

2)  Situations came up recently that showed me that I’d been thinking people were my friends when really, it was outdated thinking on my part.  It’s either people that I sensed inside never really liked me and only saw me as a means to an end or else people who used to like me, but life and circumstances took them in other directions and while I thought things were still the same, they aren’t.  They’re acquaintances now and in my head and my heart, I was still filing them in the “Friends” folder.   So I’m letting them go with blessings.  There are other people who, as I said, never really did like me, but just had things that they wanted from me that they knew I could do for them.  I was trying to be friends with them, mostly out of a sense of good will and trying to make a fresh start, but this week, their true colors showed clearly and I got the message very loud and clear.  VERY clear.  So with those folks, I am cutting all of the ties I can and not investing any more energy.  As my former friend, Cathey, would so wisely say, “They are outside of my realm of influence.”

It’s back to that old lesson I got last year about the 25% rule.  25% of the people you meet don’t like you and will never like you.  25% don’t like you, can be convinced to like you, but it’s a fickle liking and they will usually revert back to not liking you.  25% like you, but can be convinced not to like you and 25% like you right away and keep liking you as loyal, stalwart friends.  Once again, I got involved with trying to court and please the 50% who don’t like me, at least trying to sway the 25% who might like me and put that priority over the 50% who do genuinely like me.

Let it be known.  If you don’t like me, I’ve probably figured that out in the past week or so and the begging for attention is over.  I’m done.  The only thing I regret is that I didn’t catch myself sooner.

All of a sudden, it was as though my relationships all needed clarification, review and reclassification.  People who I thought of as true friends I had to accept are now in the “smile and wave” folder.  Friendships I thought were distanced are now tight again.  New friendships have formed.  

Oh and check this out:  Someone – I’m not saying who – on the Eye on Soaps staff has unfriended me on Facebook!!

Well!!  Anyone who has ever SEEN the internet knows what an act of hostility THAT is!   I mean really, there’s not coming back from that!  Talk about a burn!

3). So here’s the rest of the wild ride that my life has been.  Some of you who have read my journal for many years will appreciate this almost as much as I did.

My brother and I have not spoken since my mother died in 2003 for a number of different reasons best left unexplored at this time.  My brother is a Jr and my father was a Sr.  As is often the case in the South, my brother went by his middle name so as not to be confused with our dad.  Imagine my surprise on Friday when I found a letter in my inbox from my father, who died in 1986.  Evidently, my brother now uses his first name.

My brother’s email was short, sweet and to the point:

I looked at that email for about 20 minutes trying to take in those 2 sentences.  For those who have forgotten and don’t know, Jeff Fox is my babydaddy for my oldest son, Joe.  It was like some kind of bad 1980’s movie.  Jeff and I were absolutely crazy about each other and had plans to get married as soon as I turned 18.  I ended up getting pregnant, my dad went all Dirty Harry Meets Father Knows Best and went after Jeff with a shotgun.  Jeff was a boarder at our house and did not have any heads up as to what was waiting for him when he came home that night.  Dad had him out and gone within 15 minutes.  

I never saw him again.  He contacted me when Joe was 10 and expressed an interest in being in Joe’s life.  My husband at that time was not supportive of the idea and so I told Jeff it was best to leave things as they were.   It was one of the worst decisions of my life and I have regretted it ever since.

About five years ago, Joe asked me if I knew how he could go about getting in touch with Jeff.  Joe’s wife, Sandra, and I got busy on the internet, being the talented hackers that we are.  In the past 5 years, I have written to the IRS, to the Social Security Office and sent out over 100 handwritten letters and emails to Jeff Foxes, Jeffrey Foxes, Jeffrey D. Foxes and Jeffrey Dean Foxes.  I’ve even made some cold phone calls when I could find phone numbers.  I was lucky to only encounter kind people who were supportive, but were not the right Jeff Fox.  I tried again earlier this year and again had no leads.  What I could remember from 32 years ago when I was a scared, 15-year-old newly pregnant girl was just not enough information to go on.  Sandra and I had to admit that we’d hit a concrete wall in the search.  Our major fear was that he had died and we would never find him.

So there he sort of was in my inbox…from a very unexpected source.  That was Friday.  I had no idea where my brother now lived since the old family home had been torn down.  He had no phone number listed.  I emailed him back, telling him how important this was and got no response.

My other brother, Edward, phoned the only neighbors in the area who lived there when I did and they told him that a man had been by looking for me that week.  They reminded him of the name of the company where my brother works.  I phoned my brother at work this morning.  They were very reluctant to let me talk to him, but finally put him on the phone.  He sounded just like my father.

He said that Jeff had actually come to his work (in another town about 20 miles away) and asked him to give me his phone numbers.  He told me he did not have the phone numbers with him at work, but would get them to me soon.  He emailed them to me within an hour and after all that work and 32 years, I was looking at the phone contacts that were supposedly Jeff Fox’s.

Of course, I tried them right away, even enacting *70 to shut off call waiting and not have beeps.   I called the cell first, thinking he was likely at work.  It went to voice mail and I left a message.  I called the home phone and a woman answered.  I just asked for Jeff and she passed the phone over and there he was.  We chatted for a bit and it was clear he was excited that Joe and I were receptive to him contacting us.  We set up for Joe to call him when Jeff got in from work at 3pm our time.

Joe was a basket case and spent the day pacing and smoking.  Jeff phoned me at 2:45, devastated and apologetic.  His 12-year-old daughter fell down the stairs a few minutes before and he thought she had a broken arm.  He was so afraid we would think he was trying to back out of the phone call or not be available to Joe and I assured him that we were here today and we would be here tomorrow.  Joe should be talking with him late tomorrow morning.

I sent out 36 pages of an MS Word document today with photos of Joe pasted onto it, taking Jeff through the years from the time he was born until now.  He should have that on Wednesday or Thursday.  

It feels good to have that connection made.  They will have a lot in common and will get along great.  I feel like Earl Hickey crossing something off of his list.  It’s 30+ years too late, but it is accomplished.  Plus, I’m in contact with yet another person who knew me more in my old life.  I’ve only got 4-5 of those.  Most people I know have only known me for 15 years or so and I’m 47, so there was a whole life back there that is largely acknowledged or remembered only by me.

I have not been sleeping lately, but whenever something Big is coming into my life, I do that.   It’s incoming energy issues.  Now that this is basically completed, I really hope to get some good sleep tonight.

Chef salads for dinner!

I really am jealous over all of the rain in the Eastern US.  What I wouldn’t give for a couple of weeks of rain!  One of the things I was so excited about when I moved to Sacramento was the winter rain.  It would rain for days and days and days on end.   Up here, of course, 4000 feet higher, the rain Sacramento gets turns to snow and the rain is rare. I am quite a fan of rain.

We also don’t get thunderstorms, which makes me sad as well.  Every now and then, very rarely, we’ll get some thunder and lightning.  Growing up in Kentucky, we got some really kicking electrical storms with lightning stabbing all around and big, loud thunderclaps.  I moved to Guam and there were no thunderstorms because it’s an island and static electricity does not build up sufficiently for the lightning to be generated.  Then we moved to New Mexico where it just doesn’t rain at all.  Then we moved to England which is, again, an island = no thunderstorms.  After that, it was California and it’s a little known fact that due to some meteorological anomaly that I don’t care to look up about how the weather travels West to East or something like that, the East Coast gets wicked thunder and lightning storms and the West Coast does not.  After California, it was Idaho – still too West Coast and then back to California again.  That means it has been literally decades since I had a good shake down storm.  If I could, I’d be one of those storm chaser people who go out into the storm and take pictures and such.

On Guam, we had typhoons, which were just the most fun time.  The base housing was a fortress with typhoon shutters that you would simply go out and close when the storm started and it was like being in a bunker.  Our crew of friends would pile up at one house to wait out the storm.  Everyone brought food over and we’d play pinochle and eat and laugh and the kids would play together and then when the storm was over, we all went back home again.  Sometimes, we’d open the door after the storm and the whole world would just be wrecked.  We’d be bidding a hand and hear giant coconuts (still in the husks) getting flung against the house by the wind and palm trees falling and the loud, loud roar of the wind around the corners of the house.  Our only concern ever was that the cars not get creamed by flying debris.  Most of us own “Guam bombs” which meant we payed a couple hundred dollars for a rust bucked when we got there and drove it until it died and then bought another one.  If a windshield got taken out (the most damage we actually cared about since yet another giant dent was no big whoop), we’d junk the car and get another one because it was more expensive to replace the windshield.

I’ve told you all about our blizzards up here and really, other than those 3 months, the weather is usually great.  Yes, I miss the rain and the thunderstorms, but we are around 10-15 degrees cooler than the valley.  This week, we have lows in the high 50’s to low 60’s every night and highs in the high 80’s to low 90’s during the day.  I was sweltering yesterday and I am moving heaven and earth not to use the central air to save some money.  I have fans going that move around the hot air and help me to think I’m doing something.  I have always hated extremes of hot or cold temperatures.  Before, I was always the first ones to be freezing to death.  After I turned forty, I was always the one who was peeling off clothes and moaning about how hot it is.

When I went home to Kentucky to visit in July of 1995, I thought I was going to die.  The humidity was unbearable.  My clothes were wet and sticking to me and I could barely breathe.  I would sit in our car and run the AC just to have a moment of comfort.  Everyone around me acted as though nothing was going on and I wanted to shake them and say, “Can’t you see that WE HAVE A CRISIS HERE?  I’M HOT!!”  On Guam, the temperature is always a balmy 77 – 88 degrees, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year (and leap day) AND 100$ humidity…always.  I can’t believe that between growing up in Ky and living on Guam for almost 4 years that I lived that way.  Of course, on Guam, there is no acne.  Everyone has gorgeous skin.

I did – oh so gently – speak to Eric more about his desire for me to love the housework I do last night because the more I mulled what he’d said, the harder it was for me to process.

I do, admittedly, have a tough act to follow because Cheryl, my mother-in-law who I adore, really is a superwoman.  Eric and his twin, Edward, were 8-years-old and their sister was 9 or 10 when she became a single parent.  She worked all the time and also kept a very tidy, well run house.  Her house stays Carolyn Aspenson Clean and she is very accomplished in her professional life as well.  She set the bar pretty high and I still have not managed the mighty leap over it.

That did not come into our conversation last night.

He did clarify that his feeling is that while I willingly sacrifice for my family, I do not understand the true nature of sacrifice, which is to love the act of sacrificing for your family even if you don’t love the sacrifice itself.  He does not expect me to love doing the dishes or mopping the floor, but I should love the fact that I am making that sacrifice and giving it to my family.

He feels that if I could begin to appreciate and embrace the sacrifice I am making as an act of pure love and devotion, I would be in a better head space.

I looked at him like this:

I feel bad because I know he is trying to save me from myself and I guess I am just not evolved enough to jump on board.  I’m going to have to let this ship sail without me.  I’m just not “Old Soul” enough to be part of that crew, much less try to captain the ship.

Ultimately, he mumbled some excuse about doing something outside and left me standing there with the same expression on my face.  I don’t think I’ll broach this conversation again.  I am starting to think we’re both wishing it had never happened.

I’m totally using that “love the sacrifice” line the next time he’s fussing about something he has to do, though.

My kids are great about helping out and when I get ready to clean for the day, I round them up and tell them what to do and they do it.  No complaints or hesitations.  When I hear some of the crap other moms go through trying to get their kids to help, I feel very lucky.  There is a work force and my house looks nice by the end of the day.  If you came over, the only thing I would be ashamed of is the fact that I am still sitting here in my Walmart nightgown and my dinner dishes from last night are not yet done because I absolutely hate to cook a big meal and then clean up after.  

Next subject since I have no clever segue…

One thing I love about taking Mila is that I sleep really well and have these completely intense dreams.  Normally, I have very fractured, Indiana Jones adventure dreams that are kind of there and not there and hard to remember when I wake up.  With Mila, my dreams are very, very clear, focused and intense.  They aren’t particularly interesting, mind you, but they are very *present,* for lack of a better word.

Here’s a good example:

Just before I woke up this morning, I dreamed that I was a few minutes away from going into labor.  My daddy was Hugh Laurie:

and I loved him just evah so much.  I have never felt so pure and intense of a daddy love as I felt in my dream because my daddy was kind of eccentric and troubled, which I suspect Hugh Laurie is as well, but in my dream he was My Daddy.  He was very sick with congestive heart failure and might or might not live.  He was holding me in his arms and telling me that I should get to the maternity ward soon.  I was afraid to leave him because I wasn’t sure if he would survive until I could get back to him again.

In my dream, for reasons unknown, his real name was Nikolas Everett Waxworks and Hugh Laurie was his stage name.  I was just me, old Katrina as I am now, just hugely pregnant.  For the purposes of this dream, we were evidently ignoring the fact that Hugh Laurie is only 2 years older than I am and actually is named Hugh Laurie.  *sigh*

Anyway, I told him that I was going to name my son “Gregory Wilson Waxworks.”  ”House” fans will figure that one out quickly.  He was so touched that he started to cry a little.  I started to feel contractions, so I was in the process of kissing him on the forehead and telling him I would be back when my stupid cat, Nova, started butting his little black head up against my face so I would go get food for him and his little cat brethren.

Although interestingly sweet and undeniably weird, this is NOT the Hugh Laurie dream I would have chosen.  Ahem.

From the end of May until the end of October, I always have birth dreams, at least once a week or more.  It’s my Harvest thing I do.  Usually, I’m having a weird birth where I’m not going into labor or the baby is getting smaller and going away rather than bigger and coming out (no mystery on that one and yes, I should exercise today).  Sometimes, I dream that the baby just slips out with no effort on my part.  I guess it’s part and parcel with teaching childbirth classes for almost 20 years that I think in birth metaphors.  This time, it was a chaste Hugh Laurie Daddy birth dream.  Way to mix up my psychoses.

It  is quite hot on the mountain, more than I am comfortable being in, anyway.  I’d say it’s in the mid-80’s or so.  Interesting.  NOAA claims it’s currently 93 in Grizzly Flats.  I should not have looked.  Poor fat little JoBu is stretched out panting on the floor.  That’s one dog who could seriously benefit from liposuction because everything is thin on him except his big ol’ belly.  His diet from the past few months has not made him happy, but that dog has got to lose some weight or he’s going to stroke out, which means that while I sympathize with his plight (boy do I), I”m not going to let him eat the whole day away like he wants to do.

I spent the whole day chatting with friends on line, likely the most selfish day in a long time for me.  At 3pm, I felt guilty and decided to be productive, so I went in search of the gas powered weed-eater.  Our lawnmower had died, leaving us with only one of the manual, whoop whoop whoop ones that cuts exactly nothing.  I turned up the weed-eater in the wood shed and after much screwing around with it trying to get it to start, determined that it is out of gas.  I then determined that the gas can is in the other jeep, which is currently at a mechanic’s house supposedly being fixed.  That pretty much made it clear to me that God has no interest in me cutting the scraggly, weedy gas at this time.

I mopped the floors yesterday within an inch of their little laminate lives.  They were gorgeous and about 30 minutes later, they looked like total ass again, all smeary and scuffed and crappy.  I will not mop those things ever day.  I’ve tried plain water, vinegar water, Windex and 409 and nothing gets them shiny and nice.  Clean, yes, but not pretty and shiny.  I still love them more than carpet.  There aren’t enough words for how much I hate carpet.  If I had my way, there would not be a shred of carpet in the house.  Just throw rugs that are washable.  I look at a carpet and see funk and stink and dirt and germs and a lot of work to keep clean.

I called the electric company and got them to space out this month’s bill, so I do have airfare to L.A. now.  Next comes manifesting money for the hotel room, rental car and food and I’m good to go.

Eric is working full time for this week and two more that we know of, which is the most he’s worked at one stretch in about 4 years’ time.  He plans to go mining again this weekend for at least some of the time.  He definitely explores every option, that’s for sure.

He and I stayed up talking again last night, so today, both of us are tired and under slept.  I didn’t even notice that it was time for my soaps to be on until they were almost off.  Without a school schedule, my day is a wispy, timeless thing.  My kids start back to school on August 12th, which means they only have about 7 more weeks of summer vacation.  They got out on May 29th and that seems like an awfully short summer.  Eleven weeks, I guess.

Today, I played with a new toy called Digsby.  It’s a free download from www.digsby.com that combines all of your social networking, email and chat programs together. Dianna didn’t care for it, but I’m having a lot of fun with it.

I am easily amused.

One of the things Eric and I talked about last night was an interesting observation he made about me.  I never really mind hearing a (gently phrased) observation about me that I might otherwise miss in my extreme lack of objectivity about myself.  He has gotten better over the years with his presentation, which helps considerably.

Somehow, housework came up.  I hate housework.  I always have.  That being the case, one of the primary complaints from my first husband, who was also my second husband, was that I never did any.  That’s not entirely true, but admittedly, I could have done a lot better.  Eric took the baton from him and did his own share of bitching about my lack of interest in doing anything beyond the most cursory and necessary cleaning and finally, about 2-3 years ago, I said, “OK, FINE” and started keeping the house fairly clean.  Among the people I know and visit now and then on an unannounced basis, I’d say mine is one of the cleaner ones, which I never thought I’d say about myself.  I’d limit that to “people with kids,” how’s that?  

I felt fairly confident and downright cocky about how well I’ve done until last night, when he observed that I “take no joy in the productivity of housework.”  He was bothered a bit that I don’t clean with love and resent doing the cleaning.  My impression, although he did not give this voice and I did not clarify, is that he would like for me to change my attitude so that I clean with love and joy and a sense of great personal fulfillment.  (?!)  This means, I think, that he would like for me to go a step beyond just doing the work, which I do, and actually LIKE doing it.

I’ve been mulling this today, kind of rolling it around like a piece of chewing gum that I’m working.  I can take his point.  It’s lovely to live a life where one can appreciate the fruits of one’s labors instead of just saying, “Agh.  Glad THAT’s done.”  There are people with horrible jobs who go to work with a happy song on their lips and a smile on their face.  I’m just not there yet.  During the summer, which I call “Child Labor Happy Months,” I offset the extra work created by there being 3 extra people in the house all day long by having those three extra people do a decent bit of the work.   We have not yet gotten to set chores yet, which is a complete act of total lethargy on my part.  They do, however, do whatever I ask them whenever I ask them…for the most part.  They rarely complain about it.

As a stay at home mom whose kids are gone away at school most of the waking hours and who works from home, I dodged the bullet (so far) of direct work force re-entry.  For that, I am very grateful.  VERY grateful.  I was in the work force for almost exactly 20 years and didn’t like it at all.  I enjoyed teaching Lamaze Childbirth Classes, but beyond that, I took no joy in my work.  It was like the housework.  I did it because it needed to be done, but I resented having to do it and enjoyed when it was done.

In retrospect, although I did not appropriate appreciate it at the time, I know the library assistant job was a real peach.  I would do that again in a heartbeat and would love it.  When you are in your early 20’s, it’s not nearly as interesting or exciting as it is when you’re well into your 40’s.  Now, it would be one humongous, never ending game of Trivial Pursuit for me.  

I am sure all of this has jumped to the forefront of Eric’s mind because of his own person quest of the year.  As I mentioned, at Spring Equinox, he “planted” the goal of finding his passion in life (besides me, natch) and pursuing that in a lucrative and prosperous fashion.  Since he hates working in telecommunications and construction, he was feeling pretty desperate.  He’s 32, has worked for more than half his life, and never liked any of it.  Now, he’s staring down the barrel of The Rest of His Life and getting all crisis mode about the potential of hating big parts of the rest of his life.  God bless’im for taking action on it.  Most do not and just endure.  

His choices, barring any last minute entries into the race (which ends on October 31, the last day of Harvest Sesason), are gold mining and the California Highway Patrol.  They are neck and neck at the moment.  He loves being in the river mining, but so far, has only been able to do so 6 days since Dredging Season began on May 23rd.  It also has not proved to be particularly productive, even though they have all of the clear indicators that there is a lot of gold where they are working.  They just have to get down deep enough to find it.

The Highway Patrol is now completely out of his hands and he waits to hear.  He expects to find out whether or not he proceeds on to the background investigation portion by August 1st (which is the first day of the Harvest Season) and then should know if he is selected for the academy by October 31st (see above).  It’s funny how those dates always seem to work out that way.  It just makes me trust the process even more.

So as he is putting so much energy into fixing that part of his life, of course it bleeds over into my life and here I am still not caring for house cleaning and dog wrangling and chicken husbandry.  I don’t fuss about it (much) or let it get me down, but I can’t say that I love those parts of what I do in my day.

I get frustrated that I have to do it every day, without fail, no matter what.  I get frustrated that I have to do the same things over and over, which to me smacks of wasted action, which I really dislike.  

Almost every night, I cook a nice, full meal for my family.  There are probably 3-4 days out of the month where I don’t cook a full meal for dinner.  My kids have never had a TV dinner and aren’t sure what one is.  Most of what I cook comes from scratch.  Tonight is oven fried chicken breasts fillets, homemade biscuits, gravy, mashed potatoes and peas.  That is a typical dinner for us.  I cooked for my own (birth) family too, so I’ve been cooking for people for around 40 years or so.  I do get tired of cooking and love when someone else cooks for me (other than eating out at restaurants), which is around once a year or so.  The only reason I’m mentioning this is that even though I’m not thrilled to do it all the time, especially after this long, I am able to do it with love and with pride.  Why I can’t I get that going for the housework?

I know Eric brought it up to me because the prospect of doing what he loves as his primary activity is right there for him.  The Highway Patrol is something he really wants to do and would be good at doing.  The gold mining he also loves.  He wants me to have that same feeling with the things I do in my day and right now, I’m just not finding my way to that mindset.

It seems as though – and Eric suggested this – it’s just a perspective issue and if I can tweak my outlook just ever so slightly, I can get there.  I don’t hate my life – not by a long shot – and I am pretty sure that anyone who reads this journal recognizes that.  The truth is, however, that house cleaning is something I really do hate to do.

I learned so many shortcuts from my mother.  She also desperately hated cleaning house.  My father would get upset that the house was a mess, start in one back room of the house and begin knocking everything off of dressers, bookshelves, tables, etc that did not belong there and then sweep it all, along with whatever was in the floor, into the living room.  The entire family (minus Dad, who was then going on break after all that sweeping) gathered together and put away everything that was in the (huge) pile.  It was awful.  

When Mom knew that Dad was on the way home, she would take a saucer of Pine Sol and put it in the house vents and turn on the fan so that it smelled like she’d been cleaning.  Dad would walk in, smell the Pine Sol and be happy as a clam, not knowing what she’d cleaned,  but just damned proud she’d done it.   She would hide pots and pans in the oven so they didn’t have to be washed right then.  She would mop just the dirty spots on the floor so it would look cleaner.  Stacks and stacks and stacks.  Everything sat in stacks around mom’s house.  Books and magazines and newspapers and games and to clean, she would straight up and add to the stacks.

Now, I light a few candles, burn some incense and lower the lights, even if I know the house is clean.  It makes Eric feel like he’s walking into a sacred space.  I do it even though I know the house is  clean under.  My house is far from being perfect, but it’s better than it used to be, that’s for certain.

I used to have a Witchy friend who, when she absolutely did not want to clean her house would say, “I’m working on another level right now.  I’m not fixed in the physical plane.  I’ve gone astral and I’m going to take the lessons that are here for me and fix the house when I get back.”  She’d hang out on the astral plane for a few weeks, sometimes, to the point that every now and then, a few of us who were her friends would head on over and take care of her physical plane, which was getting pretty junked up.

Isn’t that funny though?  There are two times when I do not hate housework.  One is when I’m cleaning someone else’s house and the other is when I have someone to visit with me while I clean.  Then, I don’t mind.

At one of our Air Force bases, I had 4-5 friends and once a week, we would do “house rotation.”  We’d draw names and you went over and cleaned that person’s house because like me, they hated housework, but didn’t mine cleaning someone else’s mess.  We all did a pretty great job and everyone was mutually respectful and didn’t take advantage by leaving extra crap around when they knew the other person was cleaning their house the next day.

After 4-5 hours of straight cleaning, we’d meet back at someone’s house and snack and drink margaritas until the husbands got home.  Half the time, we’d then all grill together.

Another fun part of that is that you left your kids with your house, so you watched the other person’s kids and cleaned their house.  All of us had kids who were better behaved around other people.

In England, I actually had a real life housekeeper.  The pound was down to 1:1 on the dollar, so everything was really cheap and the housekeeper cost me something like $15 a week.  For that, she came once a week and did the under-cleaning.  The bathroom got scrubbed, floors mopped, kitchen scrubbed, walls wiped down, furniture polished and carpets vacuumed and carpet-freshed.  I’d leave for a couple of hours and come home to a perfectly clean house.  Plus, since she did not do laundry or dishes and could not do her other work with that around, the day before, you made sure all that was done.

I was devastated when the pound recovered and I could no longer afford her.  Her name was Sheila and I loved her dearly.

Now, here I sit on a mountain that is made of dirt (literally) and have not a British cleaning lady nor house cleaning team of friends in sight.  I am lucky that Eric is so helpful and never complains about washing dishes or sweeping or whatever.  I try to have that done when he comes home from work so he isn’t thinking he has to work all day and then come home and clean.  Around 99% of the time, I am successful, even if I’m on low energy like this week.  Since I work from home, I feel a greater sense of obligation to do it, which is only fair.

When he’s not working, meh, I let him take half.  

I do enjoy a clean house as much as he does, but I don’t like to be the one who does it.  If I had lots of money, would I pay someone to come in and do laundry and scrub the house as Sheila did and wash dishes and maybe cook for me?  Absolutely.  Would I want them to live with me?  Nope, too private.  

I am willing to entertain the idea that I can squeeze my perspective around enough that I don’t hate to clean house, but I’m not tremendously hopeful about the idea.

Some days, I look at it as the “rent” I pay in barter to live in this wonderful place with this great family.  I work 2 different part time jobs – combined, they do not take up as much time as a full time job – so I consider it to be part of what I give to the family for my own contribution to our betterment, in addition to the little bit of money I make from those 2 part time jobs.  

Never let it be said that Eric fails to give me plenty of things to think about.  I’ll be mulling this one for a while.

For now…it’s after 5.  Time to clean house (really fast).  Where’s the Pine Sol saucer?

I have never felt so lazy and unmotivated in my entire life.  I have never in my life doubted why my tribal ancestors had a hut at the edge of the village where menstruating women could go and think and growl and sleep and basically be separated from the rest of humankind.  I cannot even imagine why we abandoned this idea.  It’s brilliant.  Likely some women’s liberation issue.  While the principle are usually good, so often in a women’s lib situation, I end up seething through my teeth, “Will you shut UP?  You are ruining a good thing, here!”  This is one of them.  No one should be able to bleed like this and live.  (Paul – not the ex, Paul, but another Paul – and any other Paul readers, I apologize for the icky girl talk here.)  All of my energy is slowly (quickly) seeping out into the most absorbent pads on the market.  Mila can’t touch it.  Caffeine can’t touch it.  I think crystal meth could not touch it.  It’s an absolutely stunningly gorgeous day outside that cries for weed eating and gardening and raking and physical activities sort of things.  It’s 10:30am and here I sit, still in my long-sleeved, long-legged tie-dyed jammies, drinking my second Diet Mountain Dew of the day, hoping to find some hidden reservoir of go juice in my body so I can, at minimum, get done the life sustaining chore that are needed.  There is literally not one fork or spoon clean in this house.  My bed is unmade.  I’ve had close on the exercise bike for a week that need to be put on hangers.  They’ve been there so long that I have already done the next batch of laundry and added to the old batch.  My dog needs a bath and reeks.  My floors need to be mopped.  The last time I thought about mopping, I waited until a cloud passed over and convinced myself it was going to rain.  Up here, mopping your floors when its raining is like washing your car when it’s raining.

I know that cloud was days ago (no, it did not rain) and my floors look like they have dirt psoriasis.  Yet here I sit.  

As an update, Eric did get paid around $100 more than he expected to get paid yesterday, which is lovely.  That means my water bill gets paid and the electricity lives to fight another day.  Hurray!

Delena goes on her trip next week, so I will take her to town this weekend to get her stocked up on the items she needs.  Poor thing is due to rag out herself THE DAY SHE LEAVES.  We are on completely opposite schedules, which is interesting.

My back and belly are aching in perfect concert.  It’s like a little crampy harmony going on.  I feel like the one Nurse Jackie shot they keep showing in the previews where she’s stretched out on the floor in sort of a crucifix position with a pill bottle in her hand, staring blankly…except the only pill bottle I have is Aleve, which, incidentally, is only moderately convincing me that I do not have cramps.

Cramps.  What am I?  Fourteen?  

Remember when it was just cramps and bitchiness and bloating?  All of the things Midol supposedly helped (Midol completely speeds me out)?  Then it had to be called “PMS” and was a “syndrome” which is silly because technically, anything that happens between the time your period ends and the next one begins is “Pre-menstrual” to the next period.  Now we have “PMDD,” PreMenstrual Dysphoric Disoder which means MY periods are soooo much harder than YOUR periods that I need more letters in my acronym.

I mean, for Pete’s sake…have a period, get bitchy, blow up like a well fed tick, want to eat the world, have zero energy, cry over nothing, bleed like a stuck pig and get over it.  It’s not a contest.

Too much period talk, I know.

I am on the prowl for a stunning July 4th costume for our July 3rd parade.  The Queens of Grizzly Flats will ride again and last year, I was a gigantic red thing that looked like it should have twelve men walking under me, holding onto cords to keep me from taking flight beyond the height of the NY skyscrapers.  This year, I must find something with some Queenly dignity, but still having that sequiny splash of pizazz.  I would also love to get a new tiara.  It goes on the list of “what do to when I’m rich.”    Surely, some overweight drag queens have an entire red, white and blue wardrobe to donate to my local thrift stores, right?

Eric is working again today and yes, folks!  That’s two days in a row.  I could fall over completely dead.  There are rumors of an entire week and possibly, a few weeks after that.  What would it be like to have a regular paycheck again?  The mind boggles at the possibilities.

I am now a week out from my Farm Town hiatus and I am admittedly embarrassed by the amount of spare time I have (hence, the greater number of journal entries in order to avoid housework and looks as though I am “working”).  This has prompted me, during my “break,” to make my plowing and planting area to be much, much smaller.

So remember a minute ago when I said it was 10:30?  It’s now 1pm and I am still wasting time.  I did manage to get dress, put on some make up so as  not to frighten the children (the riot-starting murmurs of “I think Mom might be sick” had to be quelled) and although I am far from feeling I can do any world conquering, I should at least go feed the chickens.  They have feathers everywhere except for their heads.  They’re in an awkward phase.

…and now they are hungry little pre-pubscents.

Take care, all,

I can’t believe I had to turn on the heater this morning.  It’s the day after Summer Solstice and it was 62 degrees in the house.  I should be so lucky every year.

Last night, Eric reminded me that on Summer Solstice last year, we had a series of lightning strikes in California that set half the state on fire.  It was that hot and dry.  This year is so much different and the change is very, very welcome.  Now, the birds are singing like mad and the sky is big and blue and it’s a pleasant 72 degrees outside.  If it could stay like this year ’round, I would never complain about the weather.  I love a chilly evening and moderately temperatured day.  

The kids are doing so great this summer vacation.  They have been out since the last week of May and it was the first time I wasn’t bracing for the loss of my alone time.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m an actively menopausing woman and alone time is vital to me.  I miss the quiet of just having me and the dogs here during the day and I miss most of my time being my own.  It has, however, been lovely having the kids here.  They sleep late, not getting up until 10am or later.  I, on the other hand, am usually up and around by 8am and that gives me a bit of quiet time before the masses descend.  They seem to be having fun entertaining themselves.  Nathan, who is an outside kid, has found a buddy to hang around with for the summer and loves riding bikes and exploring with him.

Dylan reads voraciously and plays some video games.  Delena watches movies and writes constantly in her room.  She has finished writing 5 novels so far and has 2-3 others in progress.  She emerges for food and hugs and if we are all watching movies together.

Yesterday was a nice Father’s Day.  In fact, the whole weekend was very pleasant.  Eric and the man he was mining with on Saturday put in a full day and were doing very well, but toward the end of the day, the guy got a rock caught in his dredge (a dredge is basically a gigantic vacuum cleaner that sucks up dirt and such from the river), lifted the hose out of the water and had the reverse pressure blow all of their day’s work back INTO the water.  Still, they managed to pull out about a quarter ounce of gold.  Obviously, they would have had a good bit more without that loss.

Nevertheless, he had a wonderful time and got in late Saturday night.  Nathan had yet another friend come over that day, so he was very occupied while Delena and I cleaned sheds and spent time together.  Yesterday, I asked Eric what he wanted to do for Father’s Day and he said he wanted to watch movies together.  We watched the new Mummy movie (if I could go back in time and talk to myself about it, I would have told myself not to bother, but others might enjoy it more) and an old favorite that the kids had not seen, “Alien Nation” with James Caan and Mandy Patinkin.  I made a lasagna, thanks to my friend of 30 years, Karen Nutter, putting the idea into my head, and some yeast biscuits.  

After that, he and I went into the Witchy Shed and talked about Summer Solstice and our goals for the year.  The Witchy Shed and the Earth Labyrinth are two places that are never used for mundane experiences and are totally devoted to spirituality, so to us, they are sacred places.  We felt drawn to the Witchy Shed last night, so we set up the camp chairs, vowed once again to buy papasans for it some day and had a wonderful, spiritual moment together.

It showed me how much he really does want to go to the Highway Patrol Academy.  There are so few people who are accepted, but the circumstances of this coming to him are just so magical, that I will not be at all surprised if he gets in, even considering the thousands of people who have applied.  

Before we went out, I was doing the Summer Solstice write up for our CUSP site and remembering that a group I used to work with had its annual Sun King Games at Summer Solstice.  It was a competition amongst the men for the title of Sun King for the year.  They would first compete for the Warrior King and go through a number of physical challenges such as throwing weights, foot races and throwing spears at a target on hay bales.  They received a certain number of points for each of those events and the one with the most points was awarded the title of Warrior King.  Next came the Sage King competition and they would be quizzed on matters that were  factual, spiritual and philosophical.  Each got a certain number of points for that and they were given the title of Sage king.  Then they competed for Lover King and had to convince a girl they didn’t know to give them a kiss, talk about what they considered a romantic evening to be and things like that.  All of the women in the group would then judge the competitors and give them a numerical score and the one with the highest score was given the title of Lover King.  The guy who had the highest combined score when their Warrior King, Sage King and Lover King scores were combined was crowned Sun King for the year.  Sometimes, one guy would take all 4 crowns and then we knew he was a keeper.

It was all great fun and the guys took tremendous bragging rights over their scores.  Young guys and old guys and everyone in the middle would compete.

As I was writing out that memory, I was thinking about how it applied to what Eric was doing to get into the Highway Patrol Academy.  First, he took and aced his written test, which is like the Sage King Competition.  Then, he passed his physical challenge with flying colors, outrunning everyone there, which was like his Warrior King competition.  Then he felt extremely happy with how his board interview went, which was like the Lover King where you are trying to convince an actual person of your worth as a man – not just factual results.  The winner get crowned Highway Patrol Cadet instead of Sun King.

To me, thinking in those terms made his quest even more magical.

It is so nice to see his eyes light up now.  Between the mining and this pursuit of the Highway Patrol, he seems so happy and in his element.  His work life had been a drudgery to him before and his spirit was dying because of it.  I’m not sure where we will be led if this doesn’t pan out, but I am confident that it will be someplace just as magical and rewarding for him.

We prayed for assistance on the money issue together.  We don’t do that often because we very much believe in allowing The Process of our lives to unfold.  Part of our spiritual path is the firm belief that we are constantly moving toward our own greatest good and that for the most part, we should relax and let the river current carry us.  Sometimes, however, it can’t hurt to put an oar in the water to speed up the process.  Last night was one of those nights and we asked for blessings, for miracles that we cannot yet see and for the fulfillment of the promises we do see.  

This is a critical week in terms of services being shut off and important bills being paid, so it will tell us along about the next few weeks.  This sort of crunch is by no means foreign to us.  We’ve weathered far greater storms and have survived each time.  One thing you learn when you live many years amidst financial challenges is that you do survive.  Giving into the drama and fear only takes your health away from you on so many levels.  You do your best.  You make the wisest choices you can at the time.  Sometimes, you intentionally make particularly dumb choices just because you need to do and then you keep on walking.  If you behave with integrity and faith, truly doing the best you can do, all will be well in the end.  You may not be rich in the end, but you will come through the other side and look back and wonder how you made it through that particular fire.  

I don’t have any fear about the coming week.  There are four dictates in any kind of magical work you do to change your life:  To know, to dare, to will and to be silent.  ”To know” means that you take an objective looks at the facts of your situation, away from any self-imposed illusions, and be fully aware of where you stand.  ”To dare” means that you clearly vision what you want to have be different and how you want the situation to change.  ”To will” means that you take that vision and will it into reality, asking God/Goddess to bless you with this.  ”To be silent” means that you then let it go and give it up to God.  It’s not as though God is going to forget that you asked for this.  You don’t have to keep jerking on the divine coattails and looking pitifully up for a response.  You put it out there and you let it go, completely confident that the best possible outcome is assured.

So that’s what I’m doing.  I have asked for blessings and miracles in this situation.  I have a pile of my precious calla lilies growing up from where I’ve never been able to get them to grow before.  Calla lilies have always brought me miracles.  I think that is why they are so popular for funerals and weddings.  It’s another gorgeous day and how in the world can anything really be wrong when the world looks like this?

I hope your day is absolutely stellar and that your life is blessed with miracles.

Above all… Be Particular…

…about the energy with which you surround yourself, whether it generates from you or from others.

…about where you expend your own energy.

…about what you allow to take you into fear or anger or doubt.

…about who or what does and does not deserve your attention.

…about what you wish for because you just might get it.

…about where you love goes.

…about the thoughts you have regarding yourself.

…about how you view your future.

…about what you say to others.

…about what you say to yourself.

Just Be Particular,
 

Remember in the big post I talked about miracles?  Delena and I worked hard cleaning 2 of the sheds out back today so that they are neat and orderly.  In the process, I went through the Fountain Graveyard in the Witchy Shed.  I have a knack for finding nice table top fountains at yard sale and thrift stores and such.  You take a gamble with your $5-6.  Sometimes, they work and sometimes, they don’t.  Just because it makes noise when you plug it in there doesn’t mean it works well in practical application.

As a result, I end up with a lot of fountains that work for a while and then don’t or else I just wear the suckers out.  I always have a minimum of 4-5 fountains going in my house at any given time.  The negative ions they produce and the sound of the water is calming.  

Today, I brought in my favorite fountain that died over a year ago.  I couldn’t bear to throw it out.  It was a little quartzy mountain with a quartz ball that sat on top of it, probably a 45mm one to guess.  Then it had rough crystal around the base, just strewn about.  When it’s going, the ball spins.  There used to be a light inside the quartzy mountain, but it died long ago.  Then finally, the ball stopped spinning and the fountain started having the death rattle that even WD-40 won’t fix and then it died.  I brought it in this afternoon, thinking I’d finally dump it since I managed to pull a good 4-5 big boxes of trash out of the 2 sheds.  I’m getting much more ruthless in my shed cleaning, let me tell you.  For the heck of it, I plugged the fountain in and it worked just fine.  My little heart leaped in joy!  Whoo  hooo!  The ball even spins now!  I cleaned it out really well (the pump, base and everything) and not it is rolling along happily on my bookshelf.  The light fairy did not come and rekindle the spark inside Quartzy Mountain, but hey, I’m happy.

Plus, when I cleaned the back room, I found my favorite earring that I thought was long gone.  I said a little St. Anthony’s prayer and within 5 minutes, it was in my hand.  Now the sheds are done (nice surprise for Eric since he loves tidiness and doesn’t get the obsessive kind with me – he would love for me to be Carolyn Aspenson tidy) and the back room is pretty and clean and organized.

And I am really tired.  I still have a lot to do in my bedroom where I tore some bins apart and left them like an idiot.  Now, at almost 10pm, it’s time for me to go clean my room and try to find something to nibble for dinner.  The kids had their favorite dinner:  popcorn chicken and egg noodles cooked in chicken bouillon.  I couldn’t look it in the face.

Thanks, B, for your help today as well!  It was very greatly appreciated!

I’m going to go get busy so I can go to sleep in a clean room as well.  Eric will be home in around 45 minutes from his day of mining on the river and I plan to be finished and watching TV and sipping ginger ale  by then.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Thank you so much for letting me whine and fuss and feel persecuted and beat on the ground a bit last night.  I usually do not allow myself that kind of indulgence.

I feel so much better today, having purged all of that frustration.  Last night, I felt like every avenue was blocked, maliciously even!  Today, I woke up feeling fresh and new and revived and ready for all possibilities.  ANYthing can happen and I really do believe that.

I don’t know why last night affected me so strongly, but you know, analysis is paralysis and I am just going to move forward, head high, joy in my heart and faith in my spirit.  What will be will be and I can be strong enough to be graceful even if what “will be” is not what I planned or hoped.

The wind is blowing spring breezes on the mountain today.  My windows are open, candle scent and incense in in the air and how in the world can anything possibly be wrong with all that going on?  

My husband is happily mining away in the American River.  My kids are playing together joyfully.  Delena and I have been laughing and sharing a lovely day together.  

Eventually, I will tackle my back work room where I spend the majority of my time and then my environment will be more organized and less chaotic.

I do need a break, that I realize.  I’ll get one, one way or another.

As my beautiful spirit sister, Kathy Hardeman says, “God is Efficient.”

Those words give me perfect peace.  

Again, thank you so much for enduring my tantrum against the world.  I’m all better now.

Love and peace and joy to you all,
 

I hate feeling punished for being poor.  Being poor is hard enough without having to suffer the slings and arrows of corporate fuckery.  As those of you who follow my misdirected life through this journal know, each year, I attempt to go to the General Hospital Fan Club weekend in July, held in the L.A. area.  Each year, it’s a race to the death to see if I will go or not.  For whatever reason, karmic, fate-driven, bad choices that seemed ideal at the time or whatever, it seems that Eric and I are forever in a financial struggle.  Should I go spend money on this event when we are in a financial struggle?  A sane person would say no.  Each year, my delightful husband tells me, “We are going to be struggling regardless, it seems.  Go, have fun with your friends.  We will make it work.”  Each year, my family sacrifices so that I can do this and I appreciate that very much.

This year is particularly challenging.  Eric has barely worked since January.  His clients have been slow to pay all year (as I have periodically whined in here) and we have fought to make do.  We have always been fairly frugal people (annual trip to L.A. for me aside) and so we tightened our belts a little tighter, paid only the dire necessities, had the phone ring off the hook constantly from creditors calling and pieced together a financial patchwork quilt of the essentials from the little bit he makes moving stocks around on the stock market, what little I make doing web design and web mastering work for people, what I make with the Mila dealership, a retirement pension I get, his monthly V.A. disability check, the periodic work he is able to get and whatever else we can put together.  We keep hearing from his current employer that he will be working full time soon and have been hearing that for around 4 months now, with him working 2-3 days a week, if at all.  A good bit of THAT money we never see because Eric purchased parts from his employer to complete the final job his own business did and that debt has to be paid.  

So far, the house is still ours (as “ours” as a mortgage ever gets) and the lights are on.  

I told you that in order to tell you this…

Once a year, my daughter (16) sees her bio dad.  Her bio dad runs the audio visual department for the annual Anime Expo.    She and her older brother who she also rarely sees, converge on the Expo and spend time with Michael – the bio dad, as a family thing.  Anneke, who we adore, was Michael’s lady for most of Delena’s life, although sadly, they are no longer together – TMI, I know, also works the Expo and Delena gets to visit with her as well, for which I am extremely jealous.  Delena spends slightly less than a week with them, enjoying a genre that all involved are passionate about, Anime.  For those who do not know, Anime is Japanese art/comics.  To make it even better, a lot of her other friends go to this thing as well, so it’s Total Delena Heaven.

The way we do it is I cover airfare and Michael pays for all of her food and her hotel costs while she is there, which I find totally fair.  Michael is a complete gem amongst exes and non-custodial dads.  He is very respectful and appreciative of the role Eric plays in her life, being not just her stepfather, but the on-site man role model and dad figure in her life since she was in preschool.  She calls both of them “Dad.”  He gives thoughtful, concerted advice about Delena when asked and has never once questioned any decision I have made regarding Delena’s care.  He, as far as I know, trusts my judgment completely and God bless him for that.  He and I have a good friendship and I am glad that she is close with him and his son, Mykal, who I also love to pieces (he’s 20 in November).  Michael also, again God bless him, is exceptionally, delightfully dependable and tremendously punctual with the monthly child support payment.

So I was all set last week to purchase Delena’s airline ticket, round trip from Sacramento to Burbank, with the child support money he was sending.  Just before it was due, he contacted me and said that he’d run into a money snafu and had to regretfully inform me that the monthly payment would be a week late.  Mind you, this never happens, so I completely could not and would not fuss.  I told him that I was using it to purchase her airline ticket and that I would do so when the money was received.

As promised, he sent it tonight and I immediately hit Southwest.com to get her ticket.  LORD HAVE MERCY!!!  She leaves on July 1, 12 days away, and the ticket COSTS TWICE WHAT IT NORMALLY DOES…for the exact same seat.  

>:O

It is very challenging for me to type with my face in my palm, let me tell you.

I have searched far and wide, Expedia.com, Hotwire.com, Priceline.com, Orbitz.com, Travelocity.com…as well as the old standard, just going to Southwest.com.  I checked to see if flying into Los Angeles was cheaper and it was actually more expensive.   The cheapest was still Southwest, which is, in fact, the only airline with a nonstop flight to Burbank.

It’s insane.  Picture an outline of the state of California in your head.  Sacramento is halfway up in the middle.  San Francisco is halfway up and on the West Coast of California.  Burbank is a goodly drop down, an hour’s flight from Sacramento.  Southwest goes zip!  Right down to Burbank.  Every other airline in the country goes from Sacramento, TO FRACKIN PORTLAND, OREGON or SAN FRANCISCO or (get ready) PHOENIX or SALT LAKE CITY or some other God forsaken place before going to Burbank.  Gah.  It ends up taking something like 5 hours to make a 1 hour flight.

Now follow the domino effect on this one:  Because I had to pay double for Delena’s air fare, I now cannot afford to purchase the airfare for the GH Fan Club Weekend, which means that IT will ALSO be more expensive by the time I can get to it.  I am stroking  with my eyes right now the 10 day “pay or die” notice from the water company and wondering if we really need water.  I am looking at the phone with an upcoming “pay or die” date, wondering if we really need that since only creditors use it anyway.  

The sane idea is that once again, I seriously consider the wisest option, which is to not go at all.  My heart breaks and then my heart breaks again out of guilt for my selfishness.  

Once, just once, I’d love to take this trip without the knowledge that I am busting my babies down from chicken to chicken ramens to do so.  Just once, I’d love not to sweat every dime.  I can’t imagine – yes I can, that’s  a lie – what it would be like to just go and relax and never think about what I order for my meal or how much I tip or if I have a coke at the bar instead of from the grocery store across the street.  

Every year, I tell myself it will be different and program for positive financial situations to surround my trip so that both Eric and I can feel good about it.  Eric gives me the trip with love, I know, but still, I am sure it’s on his mind as well.  He knows how the trip changes me and how much more relaxed and happy I am when I come back, having had some time to be me instead of mom or wife or housekeeper.  

I began sticking back $20 here and $10 there a few months ago for the trip.  Several times, I dug into the kitty for necessities, but kept adding little bits as I could.  Now, the majority of that is gone and I am mostly free falling.

Road trip to the GH Fan Club Weekend?  Thought about it, but can’t seem to make the idea work since we only have one vehicle (which Eric would like to have being stuck on a remote mountain with kids for 4 days) and renting a car, buying gas and driving would not only costs about as much as flying, but would take around 14-16 hours in total travel time.  We’re back up to almost $3 a gallon here for gas.

I don’t leave until July 16 and as Eric just said, “All sorts of miracles could happen between now and then!”  He’s excited about going mining tomorrow and always feels like the 50 pound nugget of gold is going to be uncovered in the river at any moment.  He gets paid a few dollars on Monday for work he did this past week.  Once again, they tell him that starting Monday, he’s working full time.  

I can’t whine to him about this because he works so hard and sacrifices so much for us.  I can’t whine to Delena about it because that puts a pall on her trip with her Dad and the other side of her family.  Plus, I don’t believe in letting kids – even almost 17-year-old kids – have to deal with adult problems.  She would feel absolutely terrible if she knew.  That means I have to whine to you folks.  

Her ticket is booked and for this one moment, that is the important thing.  I have not given up on the GH Fan Club Weekend yet.  It always seems to work out and for that, I am grateful.

Right now, my irritation is centered on Southwest Airlines, who, like every other airline on earth, charges more for flights booked with less than 2 weeks’ headway.  

So that’s part one and overall, I’m working it through in my head and trying to focus on the potential.  Eric is supposed to receive a stimulus in the form of an extra VA check.  It’s only $200 or so, but that would be a blessing to arrive right now.  His final, final, final check on his last project from his own defunct business is due in the last few days of this month.  Surely they can send that out a few days early, right?  Granted, it’s already earmarked for my mortgage, but it’s a little bit more than my mortgage, so there are a few more dimes.  Eric could have misjudged the amount he still owes his current boss (who was also his previous boss before he became a mailman) versus the amount he earned last week and get a few extra bucks.  Eric actually could find that giant gold nugget tomorrow and head out to San Francisco to the assayer’s office for a huge payout.   Oh and the IRS could finally decide to return to me the $200 they took from my bank account in April to pay toward a tax debt that had been paid in full a week prior to that.  I ended up getting in touch with a Taxpayer Advocate who is trying to find out why the “unpostable” payment (it is “unpostable” because they took it when there was no longer an account to post it to) has not been sent back to us.

If there is one thing I know, it’s that miracles can come from all sorts of places.  For the past several months, I feel as though I have led a “Murphy’s Law” existence.  If something could to right, it will go wrong instead and then just a little more wrong for good measure.  It has been uncanny the disproportionate – beating the odds – number of things that have gone wrong when the way was cleared for them to go right.  That being the case and nature being all about balance, I am 110% behind the idea that balance dictates that I am due a time when a “beating the odds” number of things start to go RIGHT.  If I’ve been banking up some miracles, I am fully ready to call those puppies in to play.  

So let’s see…Sunday is not just Father’s Day, but it’s also Summer Solstice.  That’s when you see your crops for the harvest year high and strong in the fields.  It’s the longest day of the year when the light is ruling over the darkness.  Monday is New Moon and that is the darkest night of the month.  It also represents new beginnings.  Sounds like a good time to get some miracles moving.

Yesterday was my Day of Pout and I didn’t even yet know about the doubling of the air fare issue.  I woke up feeling persecuted and sad and like we were never, ever, ever going to get ahead, which is a far cry from my usual optimistic, sunshine and puppy dogs self.  My family depends on me to be the cheerleader, the silver lining, the happy spin on things and when I am down or discouraged, we must all just be doomed to hell.  Eric doesn’t know what to do with it and the kids worry.  I did absolutely nothing all day long and even stayed in my nightgown most of the day, moping around like Eeyore.  Eric was great and just let me have my funk, coming in from time to time to give me a hug or kiss my head.  We talked for a bit and he said that how I was feeling was how he felt most of the time.  (great)  I told myself I could have the day to pout  and the next day, I had to be back to normal.  I was and woke up in a good mood and kept it for the day.  It was around 9pm that I started groping for airfare prices and got slapped upside the head with the cold salmon of reality.  Actually, I think it was more like a mackerel; nothing as nice as a salmon.   The mackeral might have also been fairly old and decaying, I think.

I’m finished bitching about the air fare, having vented it all here and to Eric a a bit, who rolled with the punches and said all of the right things and told me not to worry about it until Sunday.  Not sure what happens on Sunday, but it’s as good a plan as any and better than mine, which was to watch TV and brood some more.  He just says it will all work out and you know, it always does.

Thanks for letting me rant.  When I do get rich, I will totally underwrite Eye on Soaps and never ask for donations again.

: P

For now, I am going to try and drug myself to sleep.  Tomorrow is another day and besides, my “What Classic Hollywood Star Are You” quiz said I was Grace Kelly.  Does it really get any better than that, I ask you?

Ab-so-lutely not.