I have calluses from all the screwing....

Where have I been?

Have you missed me?

My last post was a week ago. I find myself a bit uninspired lately for several reasons, not the least of which is my Uncle Robbie's departure from this world on Tuesday morning. Losing another relative to cancer makes this dreadful disease so much more prevalent in my life again and I find myself over analyzing everything Brian does. Is he walking slower than usual? Is his speech worse than last week? Why is he so tired? Why is he watching TV instead of interacting with the kids and me? and so on and so forth and scooby dooby doo.... (name that song)

Aunt Sally gave me a free pass for missing Robbie's funeral. In fact, I think she pretty much graciously uninvited us as the best gift of love ever. 1) It is over 9 hours away from us. 2) My kids are in school and Grant is in half day school making the logistics of getting someone to help with the kids complicated at best, and taking them out of school for 2 days in the first two weeks of school to attend a funeral 9 hours a day isn't very reasonable. 3) When you are in the midst of an everyday battle to try to beat the cancer in your own life, the last thing you want to do is attend the farewell of someone that just succumbed to it. 4) Brian feels good about 8 of every 14 days. He really doesn't want to spend 3 of those days at a funeral. Call us selfish. We reserve the right to be so every so often.

Awkward Segway #1 -

We had a party for some friends and family on Saturday - those that helped us pour our new patio. Isn't it lovely?

Preparation for a party, no matter how laid back, is time-consuming, as you all know.

I am 3 days behind on laundry which means I haven't done laundry in 6 days because I try to do it every 3 days. The reason for that is that SINCE the weekend, I have spent HOURS turning approximately 3,761 pieces of this:

into exactly TWO final pieces.

This:

and this:

which is now anchored in the ground so that THIS can't happen again:

(April 2008)

All projects accomplished pretty much BY MYSELF. Because, Brian's right hand just does not work much at all these days and these are big tasks. Luckily, we have acquired quite a few tools over time and they help tremendously with said projects.

Awkward Segway #2

As a child, my sister struggled with Fall allergies. Ragweed, we assume, but who can be totally sure, right? Anyway, every school picture taken in September had my sister looking like a North American Native Eskimo with her closed up puffy eyes. And I am not insulting North American Native Eskimo's or my sister, but she just didn't look like herself. We had to keep the house closed up on beautiful Fall days because of her allergies. I remember her walking Zombie/Frankenstein-like to the bathroom in the mornings because her eyes were crusted over with muck from the night. I don't remember feeling much sympathy because I was a teenager and what could be more important in the world than the drama I was creating in my own life back then?

Anyway, as an adult, I have developed Spring and now FALL allergies. Lucky me. This would not be quite so bad except that I love early fall/late summer semi-hot days and the above projects mentioned? they had to be done OUTSIDE. This has caused me to spend my evenings inside with a box of kleenex, an extra dose of Zyrtec and a beer because, dude, beer totally dulls cures all allergies.

Awkward segway #3

My kids are back in school, as you may have read last week. This means, we are up at 6:30 in the morning, fighting and battling non-stop until they leave me at 7:15. Actually, let me give you a bit more detail:

6:00 my alarm goes off

6:09 my first snooze goes off

6:18 my second snooze goes off

6:27 my third snooze goes off and I get out of bed and get dressed in my workout clothes

6:30 I wake kids and help them get dressed while they whine and complain and cry and tell me to turn off the light because in the morning light apparently fries little boys' eyeballs.

6:38 they choose breakfast and Grant eats it in about 98 seconds. Gavin spends the next 10 minutes explaining to me that he has forgotten how to pour milk, where the bowls and cups are and how to insert a spoon into his mouth. Also, he apparently cannot eat a poptart or nutrigrain bar unless it is in bitesize pieces. Which is ridiculously ironic because if it comes out the wrapper cracked or broken, he refuses to eat it and opens a new one.

6:48 - I make Gavin's lunch and continue to nag him about EATING before he runs out of time. Grant is putting on his shoes so he can go outside and play before the bus arrives.

7:00 - I am fussing at Gavin to FINISH EATING and brush his teeth so he can be ready for the bus.

7:05 I wet Gavin's head while he runs away shrieking because apparently? spray bottles of water melt little boys' faces in the morning as well as light frying their eyeballs.

7:10 Get on backpacks and go out waiting for bus.

7:15-7:20 bus comes. Grant hugs and kisses me and giggles while I throw him kisses after he is seated until he is out of sight while Gavin casually ignores me and slightly waves as he enters the bus IF no one is looking.

7:30 - I eat my own breakfast and have some more coffee.

Remaining of morning: I work out, I shower and dress. I sometimes run an errand. I work around the house. Grant is home at 10:55. In the afternoons, I run more errands if necessary and I work on above projects. I weed a bit and water a bit. I go through the mail and pay bills. I balance statements, etc. I make and cleanup lunch and dinner. I do homework or review work with the boys from school. Also throw in laundry, house cleaning and maintenance and anything else domestic.

7:15pm - boys are in shower getting cleaned up for bed. Read a book, say prayers and talk a bit until lights out between 7:45 and 8:00.

I crash around 9:30 or earlier these days to start over the next day.

In short, I am tired and I do not take much time for this blog. And I do not take much time to read any blogs. Because, there is this little problem of numbers. The two biggest ones being1) more than 8 - as in I need more sleep than that lately. and 2) more than 24 - as in there will never be more than that many hours in a day.

My hands and shoulders hurt from all the forcing, turning, screwing, and leveraging I have been doing the last two days. I have calluses on my hands. I have small cuts and blisters between fingers and I don't really even remember how they happened. And the trampline frame above - not the same one as we were replacing from "the incident" so I had to re-engineer the spring placement and am not overly optimistic of the useful life of the mat. AND, Asics discontinued my running shoe and replaced it with a joke of a model totally lacking in arch support and cushion giving me much foot pain during my morning run unless I want to fork out an ADDITIONAL $40 for the upgraded model with adequate support and cushion. And I realize I sound like a neurotic, New York, Jewish, bitchy mother-in-law, but still...

And with Robbie's death on Tuesday, all I can think of is if something happened to Brian how would I do all this and work 40 hours, too?

KEEP BELIEVING