Beer

I've been trying to like beer my whole life. 

Here are some reasons why I should like beer:
It smells good
It looks pretty
My ancestry is mostly German
I lived in Germany briefly
and finally.....I went to college.

As I child, I would take a couple sips from my dad's evening beer.  He always looked so relaxed, sitting on the back porch at dusk.  He would arrive home from work, covered in dust, and rinse his arms and face at the spigot before going inside.  My dad is retired now, and though he no longer has an evening beer, he still washes up at the spigot.

In high school, I practiced teetotalism.  My friends and I didn't get invited to those kind of parties.  Good thing too, after our last day of high school, there was a big party where the police were called and 17 members of the graduating class were "caught".  We had a good time too at my house, around a bonfire....with soda.

Now college, this is where I should have learned to at least tolerate beer.  I tried too...my freshman year my good friend and I split a beer.  We didn't finish it.  Once I had come home for the weekend, to find that the exchange student my parents were currently hosting ,  was a slob.  Now remember my affinity to neatness and order, I was very upset that MY room was a wreck.  So I grabbed a beer from the fridge and went out on the back porch (where else?) to fume.  I maybe choked down half before going out to the barn to talk to my dad.

In Germany, the beer was so pretty.  It would arrive at the table, for D, in tall glasses. At first he drank the dark stuff that is equivalent to drinking a loaf of bread, then after the 10 pound weight gain he switched to the lighter stuff.  I would sip it, hoping that I would like authentic German beer.  I didn't.
For the last year, D has been on a mission to find a beer that I will like.  We've tried so many different kinds...with different kinds of fruit.  Nothing has stuck.

The beer train has passed me by.

Please drink responsibly.

Unemployment

I am facing unemployment from my favorite job. It is definitely going to happen. In September of this year I will be an unemployed SAHM (Stay-at-Home Mom). H is starting kindergarten and I become useless. What did you say? Over-dramatic?! Me???

Honestly, it is hard not to look at it that way. I’ve spent the last 8 years playing, disciplining, reading, making lunch, cleaning messes, and more. Often, after a particularly busy day, I have a great satisfaction in sitting down and realizing that it is the first time I’ve sat all day. I have learned so much on this job: Hungry Hungry Hippo is the best game ever, and Candy Land is the worst. Before my boys I did not know that some dinosaurs were omnivores, or that you can color on carpet with crayons. I love this job. I still have so much to learn, like how to avoid a panic attack when L uses a public restroom by himself, and how to keep them from dating until they are 30? I am sad that my little boys are growing up, and I am excited to see the boys they are turning into.


Since D and I made the decision that H would be our last, I have been dreading this September. I can’t imagine how I will fill my days without them. I mean there is only so much time I can spend on Facebook cleaning the house. So I’m going to school, too. I will be starting graduate school in the fall, and I am terrified. What if this is a waste of our family resources, what if I fail, what if it is too hard?

Then eventually I will continue (but it feels more like re-start) a career. Thinking about a career is making me anxious as I type. What if I am not cut out for it, what if it is too hard, what if I don’t look good in pant-suits?


I am blessed that I've had the opportunity to stay home with my babies.  So I am also grateful that for the next few years I will be an unemployed SAHM. 

Homecoming Part 1: The Anticipation

Homecoming Part 1 is the anticipation of homecoming. Now we have more than a month before D returns, so it is a little early to get too excited. This is the plan:


D will arrive home on a Thursday (a day that both boys have school). I will have just enough time to get to the airport, pick up our soldier, and rush back to drop him at home, before I go pick up the boys from their schools. The boys will walk in the house and....surprise! Daddy is home! Hugs, kisses, and much story-telling will follow. Then we will do homework, have dinner, and seamlessly resume our duel-parent roles.


HA. HA. HA. Here is what I am expecting:


D will arrive on Friday at 2:00 pm, because of airport delays. Only L has school on Friday and picking D up at the airport at that time on a Friday = nightmare traffic. As such we would not get back to the school in time to pick up L. So I will have to make my husband wait at the airport for several hours and since it is late, we won't park and go inside and we won’t have a local news-worthy reunion. We will skip homework that evening and get drive-thru for dinner. D will walk in the house weary and surprise!!... the boys are fighting over an invisible leopard (they've done this before).


The only thing I am not worried about is resuming our lives with Daddy home. D has been gone like this before, and for longer stretches of time. It wasn’t always easy adding Daddy back into our routines. I’ve been doing it my way for all this time and now our system gets shaken up.  D and I have learned some strategies for making the transition easier on everyone. I learned that though he is willing, he may not be able to jump right in and be Daddy; he needs a period of observation. When he is ready, I learned to let him find his own ways to make things work. D learned to ask for help before he gets overwhelmed.


Sounds easy enough, right? It’s not, of course. It won’t be seamless and there will probably be some arguments along the way. As children grow and change so do parents, I always remind myself that I’ve had the benefit of growing with them, so I don’t notice the change. D is going to be dropped in a house with children that changed, and a wife/mother that changed. We can’t immediately expect him to know all the nuances of our lives. I remember to be patient with D and myself.   

and there is more than one right way to load the dishwasher........




Stay tuned for Homecoming Part 2: The Reality

Letters

Truthfully when I first signed up on Facebook, I was using as a tool. A tool to spy on see how my step-son DK was doing, who his friends were, etc… It also helped me stay connected to my brother P and my little brother JT. Now all of my siblings and my mom have a Facebook account, and most of my friends. In fact I can only think of 2 friends that I wish had a Facebook page. I still connect with these friends one through email and one the old-fashioned way….you know with paper, a writing instrument, and a stamp. My spelling is atrocious.


Thinking back, at different periods of time, I have had a friend that I have corresponded with through writing. Starting in middle school and through high school, my friend Amy and I had a notebook that we used to correspond. She would take it home and write a page, then give it to me, and I would do the same. I think I still have this notebook, tucked in a box at my parent’s house. We didn’t write sweet stuff to each other, basically the pages are filled with calling each other names like “stinky sloppy booger eater” we even illustrated the pages…..I wonder why we weren’t popular?

Later I corresponded with a man I had met during a summer theater production. In every show I’ve done, I have developed relationships with the cast. You spend every evening with them for months, and then when the show is over…you may not see them again. It was just so with Derek, but we wrote. I did not have a crush on him, as some had suggested, rather he was a genuinely nice guy. We wrote for, I don’t know, I couple of years. Then, as is often the way, we lost touch. The last written note from Derek was a Christmas card, the year he got married.

Later in college I wrote to a man in prison, don’t tell my parents, it was dumb. Really dumb. I don’t know what his crime was and after about 2 of his letters I stopped writing back. It was really dumb.

When D went off to basic training (again) and AIT (that’s Advanced Individual Training, for normal people) in 2004 we corresponded through letter. We had occasional phone calls, but mostly it was letters. I wrote to him every day for nearly a year keeping him up-to-date on baby L.

Now I am writing to a friend from Indiana. I saw her recently and suggested that she get on Facebook. She thinks it’s sad that people use Facebook to keep in touch with their family. But just the same, she doesn’t write or call. So I issued a challenge to her (and myself) that we write to each other. So far so good…..

Writing is personal, and it takes time. Sometimes these are things that are hard to, and sometimes impossible to share. So we have Facebook when you don’t have time to write, call, or visit the ones you care about.

Clutter

Sentimentality = Clutter


I don’t like clutter it makes me anxious. I like things to be orderly, because then things are predictable. I like things to be neat, so I can see what I have.  I joked once about having the opposite of a hoarding problem, I wasn’t joking…but I don’t think it is a problem either. I don’t get attached to things. I didn’t save the flowers from my wedding, I tried to give my wedding dress away (I’m not wearing it again, and I don’t have a daughter), if I get a gift that I don’t use I donate it. I don’t keep stuff. I don't even keep too much of my children's artwork. Moms all over the world would utter a collective "gasp of horror"....if they knew. 

I’m annoying, I know. D is really messy has a different organizational strategy than I do. He is sentimental about things, and he has a lot of stuff for “just in case”. He can contain it, that is, I tell him where it will bother me the least and that is where he puts it. I am annoying, right?

Photographs are my one exception, but it’s not my fault. I keep my photographs up-to-date. Every 2 or 3 months I print off the digital photos to go into a photo album, I add in any photos that were given to me for those months. I have been doing this for the last 8 years, everything is chronological this way. The problem is when people give me photos of an event a year or even six months later. I haven’t left space for those photos! But I can’t throw them away, either. So they go into a box. I don’t know what to do. Do I start a new album? It would have odd and end photos that cover years. This is not at all appealing to me.

Sometimes, though, I go through the box for no reason.  It is a perfect representation of things I am sentimental about: my children, my husband, my family, and my friends. They are all mixed up, in different sizes, some from long ago, old friends, new friends, people I’ve never met, and people I see every day.

The clutter in this box does make me anxious. I love and care for those people.  So because I am my mother's daughter, I worry...I am anxious for them.

Circus

Last fall I began watching the PBS series CIRCUS. It is a six hour series that follows the cast, crew, and management of the Big Apple Circus. I’ve probably watched all the episodes at least twice, and watched some of the clips on the website as well. I find it both exciting and heartbreaking at the same time.


In high school, I had the opportunity to learn and perform a circus act. For a civic theater production of Barnum, I was taught the Spanish Web. 3 other women and I trained with a woman who had defected from a Russian circus. She was incredible. Luba was in her fifties, she was tiny, and the physically strongest woman I have yet to meet.

Training was intense, 3-4 hours every evening. We would hop from one end of the mat to the other on one leg backwards, pull-ups, push-ups, ballet, and so much more. All that before we even touched the rope. We learned how to climb the rope, how to wrap our legs around the rope to look as though we just slither up to the loop 15 feet over the floor. I learned to spin with my wrist in the loop and my ankle in the loop. I learned how to go from an upside down position to an upright one gracefully, and I learned how to descend the rope slowly using only my arms. I felt strong, I was strong. I once counted the blisters on my hands and feet, at one time I had 13 separate blisters. I would develop blisters on top of blisters, my hands and feet would bleed each evening. I felt beautiful. I was so invested in this art that I dreamed of continuing.

In watching the program I see behind the scenes of what circus life is like, the hardships, the failures, the successes, and the joys of performing. That is why watching this program is exciting and heart breaking, I get a glimpse of “what may have been”. I could never, and would never, trade my experiences or make different decisions. I have a charmed life. My life is full of people, places, and experiences that changed my life….or could have.

This is a photo of me, though not a great one, performing the Spanish Web.  It is not easy to see, but I am upside down with my foot in the loop. 

My Brother P

All of my 5 siblings are amazing in their own unique ways. Our parents are…..amazingly unique. More on them later, right now I want to talk about my oldest brother P. P is 12 years my senior (the oldest of the 6 of us) and is geographically closest to me. He also lives in Northern Virginia. Although in his drive to my house during rush-hour he probably saw more traffic than he would have if he’d driven to Indiana to visit our parents.


12 years is a long time. Before I was 7 he was off in college and was only home for a handful of summers after that, consequently I have no real memories of living in the same house with my brother. What I have is a newspaper photo of me adjusting the tassel on his cap. Then he was gone. He started his new adult life that didn’t really include an elementary-aged sister. His oldest daughter was born before I turned 16. I don’t have any “remember when we did this” stories with P. I’ve only ever known him as an adult, and maybe he still has a hard time knowing me as an adult. We have always been at different stages in our lives: P can leave his daughters home alone and go on a date with his wife….I still have to pee with the door open.

Last Thursday (backward pants day), there was an evening Father-Son event at H’s school. I forwarded the invitation to P because he is my brother and also H’s godfather to see if he was available. I really expected him to say “no”…it was a weeknight and would make for a really long day for P, but he didn’t. He couldn’t have been more excited.

P stayed for a little while after he brought H back, and the little boys were in bed. We talked about how I’m doing with D’s deployment. We talked about his continued health (5 years cancer free), and we talked about our children. His oldest will be heading off to college in another year, while my youngest will be starting kindergarten. It was a nice chat, just the two of us. We may never be really close, but this was really meaningful to me. I am grateful for my brother.

Backward Pants

Today, H went to school with his pants on backward. No, it was not backward day, or reverse day, or silly day, or any other crazy day at school. It is a Thursday. At least he was wearing pants! He didn’t notice it, and neither did I till he was walking away from me in the drop-off line. Yikes! I am curious to see how they are when I pick him up.
The teachers will probably think that I’m having a rough time with D deployed. I’m not. We’ve gotten into a rhythm here, although things don’t always go smoothly (like this morning.) My mom and my non-military girlfriends ask me all the time, how I manage. Here is how:

-Being a mom is much easier, when you are not being a wife at the same time. I am lucky I don’t have to be an employee either. The only schedule I have to work around is the school schedule.

-I have to deal with the problems as they come up. There is no “wait and see what D says” This may sound like a bad thing, but it is about being decisive and independent. Once it’s fixed, I don’t have to think about it anymore. It makes me realize that I can do almost anything.

-I have friends that give me an ear. I have family that is thinking of me, and I have a husband who thinks that I rock. Which I do.

-I have the two funniest children on the planet. I speak from authority, of course, because I have met all the children on the planet.

We are having a good time without D here, just like we have a good time with D. We miss him, a lot, but life goes on. If I waited until D was home to have a good time and be happy, that would unfair to the boys, to me, and even D.
When I pulled away from the school this morning, I felt guilty for about 1 second, before I started laughing. Maybe I’ll wear my pants backward tomorrow, it could be fun.

Valuable Lesson # 1

My husband sent me this email:
So I ordered the kabob plate which was three skewers of meat; one of lamb, one of chicken and one of beef. It came with a few french fries and some steamed vegetables. Way more than I could finish but I did my best. You know how I eat: a bite of lamb a french fry and a couple of vegetables to include this real skinny green bean. Guess what was not a green bean?
It was one of the hottest peppers I have ever eaten. My mouth was burning, Nate and John were laughing and I was about out of Diet Pepsi. I made it through without too many tears.
And that is how I learned a valuable international travel lesson: Always test the food you are eating with little bites first.

I really miss him. I love the little stories he shares with me. I appreciate that he knows the ones that will make me laugh and the ones that won't. My favorites are the ones where he does something silly or embarrassing. He doesn't really get embarrassed too easily, and is usually quick to laugh at himself. But there was this one time.......

My mom and sisters and I were making potato salad for Easter, while the men were watching TV. I took a big spoonful of mayonnaise to my husband, but I told him it was frosting......... He put the whole spoonful of mayonnaise in his mouth. He was very nearly sick, and was mad at me. To be honest, I thought he would just take a little bit. Too bad he hadn't learned the lesson above 8 years ago.

Boats

I’m not a huge fan of boats. Let me define that a little more. I am not a fan of huge boats on huge bodies of water, or small boats on huge bodies of water, or sail boats on any body of water. I am more of pontoon on a lake kind of girl. I can swim, though. I probably have an unnecessary fear of rogue waves. My husband now regrets letting me watch the Poseidon Adventure. His hopes of going on a cruise (with me) were forever dashed when that cruise ship in the Caribbean was tipped (although not all the way over).


Now I am reading an abridged for young readers version of Moby-Dick to the boys. They seem entirely unaffected by the gore of the book, and have no expressed fear in going on a boat. Of course, we are not to the end yet…..


I, on the other hand, now have two things to worry me in the ocean: rogue waves and rogue whales.

Confessions of a Know-It-All

I confess to being a Know-It-All. I confess that I have a hard time hearing disinformation and NOT correcting it. I confess that of the 10 times I do speak up; there are 100 that I felt like speaking up. I confess that there is one thing I hate more than disinformation…other Know-It-Alls.

I’ve been biting my tongue all day, today.


I’ve been working for the last several months on a school fundraiser for L’s school. It is a 5K and 1 Mile Fun Run. The event over now, THANKFULLY, but my work continues as we wrap things up. Today we were discussing the Spirit Trophy which will go to the classroom with the most participants. The PTO President considers it “unfair” to award the trophy using percentages. For instance if one class A had 8 of 28 students, while class B had 7 of 20 students participate, she felt it needs to be awarded to class A. Percentage-wise class B has a higher percentage of participating students. Am I wrong here? Isn’t it unfair to NOT use percentages? Geez…doesn’t she watch The Biggest Loser? Come on!
Secondly, now that my husband is deployed, I have unwillingly been pulled into the “protective bubble” of our dear friends and neighbors. They are a lovely couple and we have a good time with them. However, she is a Know-It-All just like me. This evening we were having some strong thunderstorms with hail and wind. She sent me a text message that we should go to the basement. I know weather, I’m from the Midwest…this was NOT basement weather. So I replied to her text that we’d had no hail, we were fine, and that the worst was over. She wrote back “no it's not”. So thinking that maybe I had missed something, but desperately hoping I had not (because Know-It-Alls hate to be wrong) I looked on the computer for the radar pictures. Sure enough, the worst was over. So I sent her a text saying as much. She writes back “oh, well they just updated that then.” RIGHT…….. SURE THEY DID…..
I know there is very little difference between my friend and I except one little thing. She is crazy and I am right.

Americanism

Since the time I was seven until I went off to college, I have had the pleasure of meeting many young men and women from all over the world. My parents thought that it would be a good experience for everyone to host exchange students. When I was 16, I was fortunate enough to be an exchange student myself. I went to Australia and New Zealand, and spent 2 months living with families in those countries. I also had the excitement of living in Germany for several years (thank you Army!). But I am NOT well traveled, that would be my sister (Thank you Delta!).
I did learn a few things. Many non-Americans consider Americans to be over-indulged, short-sighted, and greedy. Guess what? We are. We drive big cars, live in big houses, spend too much, eat too much, think too much about ourselves, and too little about anything else. And the worst part? I am no different. I am ashamed of myself. I may be worse than the typical American because I see the ways that I am failing humanity. I am daily reminded of this every time I turn on the news. Not just Japan and Libya, but everywhere. People are suffering everywhere (even in the USA) and what do we do? Nothing, we go to the mall. I went and saw a movie today.
Part of me wants to give up everything non-essential. We don’t NEED television, and we don’t need two cars and motorcycle, and we certainly don’t NEED all the junk in the pantry. I don’t NEED this computer, or my cell phone. We don’t NEED a house this big. I have a yard where I should plant a vegetable garden. Sometimes I am sick to my stomach, looking around and see all of my excess.
When I was in Australia, I stayed with a lovely family with 3 daughters. One day we went to visit the grandmother who lived not too far away. When I was introduced to her, she looked me up and down and said “you’re not fat!” Even at sixteen I could see that I was not at all what she had expected. When I was in New Zealand, I stayed with an older couple who went out of their way to tell me all the things that were wrong with the United States. I desperately wished I could hide my Americanism, but there it was, every time I opened my mouth.
We are so blessed to live in the United States. I am fortunate to be born an American. And yet, here I want to wish it away. We need balance here. We need perspective; we are failing ourselves without it.

Past Addiction

Last December I did something I said I would never do. Not only that, but I teased other people for doing it. I started just so I could see what all the fuss was about, and what do you know….I got hooked. Even then, I was embarrassed and ashamed. I hid my addiction from my children, and tried to hide it from my husband. D is smart and he figured it out. It was one of my clandestine trips to the library that set him off. Fortunately, I am over it now, that is to say that I am done. My addiction, you ask? Even now, months after finishing, I am ashamed to type these words….the Twilight Novels.
Okay, now you know. Tease me, I am still teasing myself. I read through them quickly, by neglecting almost every other thing in my life. Kids…..”What?! You need to eat again?” Laundry …. “Wear the ones from yesterday” Dishes….. “It looks clean to me”
Now I’ve not seen the movies, but you’d have to be living in a box somewhere not to know the actors that play the roles. But for the purpose of this comparison we are using only the book descriptions.
Edward:
Cold
Sparkly
Well-dressed
Immortal
Looks like a teenager

Jacob:
Warm
Tall
Muscular
Semi-immortal
Looks like a man

Seems pretty clear-cut to me. Jacob is the winner, folks. I find nothing at all attractive about a cold, sparkly boy. Now a warm, muscular man on the other hand……….
I have no plans to see the movies, because, as usual with books turned to movies, they interfere with the images in my mind, and frankly I’d like to keep those. I also won’t read them again, they weren’t that good.

My Ex-Wife

Okay, Kelli is not MY ex-wife, she is D’s. My sister's husband was also previously married to a woman named Kelli, so when we swap stories we refer to them as "my ex-wife" or "your ex-wife"
Kelli and D have a wonderful son named DK. I first met DK (and Kelli) when he was 5, he is now going on 17! Crazy how time flies. D and Kelli have had their ups and downs in the time that I’ve know them. Kelli has ALWAYS been kind to me, and for a long time, even after D and I married, we were little more than acquaintances, and who would expect us to be more?
Then one summer, with D away for several months, DK needed a surgery. Where better than Walter Reed Army Hospital to have it done? So DK, Kelli, and Kelli’s partner Anne came to stay with us. You would think that would be strange, especially with D gone, but it wasn’t. Although, some of my male friends had a lot of jokes (and wishful thinking!). Kelli and Anne were able to stay for the surgery and for a couple days when he returned home, but he would spend the next six weeks with just me and the little boys. DK’s surgery was a long one and left him needing a lot of help, he was 15. I was very nervous about the next six weeks, about his recovery, about how he would feel about depending on me. As it turns out, it was the best thing that could have happened for our relationship. For the first time, I was his care-taker. I helped him shower and dress, helped him up and down stairs, and tucked him in bed each night.
In turn, it was also the best thing that could have happened for Kelli and me. During this time, Kelli was my biggest supporter. We talked often, of course, about how DK was doing. Even now, nearly 2 years later, we still talk more than she and D do (his deployment makes it hard for anyone to get a hold of him).
I like Kelli. It is tempting, as the second wife, to say and think that the first wife was ALL BAD. The truth is, she is a great mom, and has been a good friend to me. We are family.


Oh and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Farm Widow?

I take issue with women saying they are “farm widows” or football, golf, or any other activity that men get wrapped up in. I know what they are saying, of course, that they are spending a lot of time alone and the day to day responsibilities of house and children fall to them. I get it. Oh boy do I get it. But I won’t say that I am an “Army Widow” because that is something else entirely. I know lots of women who at different times will refer to themselves as a “widow” even though they are not, I believe they intend it to be a joke of sorts, but I’m not laughing. I am forced to think about it in a more realistic way.
Since I sometimes make mountains out of mole hills, I won’t say anything to these women. Because if they are spending even half as much time as I do on my own, I understand the strain. Then sometimes I want to kick myself for feeling sorry for myself at all. There are women that hold down the fort for a year when their husbands are deployed. Then of course there are the real Army Widows (and all military branches), whose lives are changed forever.

Cub Scouts

When Cub Scouts was first pitched to us, by a flyer that came home in his back pack, it was one night a month. HA!!!! Try one night a week or more, but that is not what annoys me. What really gets to me are the other parents, and the pack/den leaders. They are crazy. Nutso.
We got into this because L was interested and I thought it would be a fun father/son activity for D and L to do together. Now that D is deployed, I am the parent taking him to the meetings. So to my dear husband who was complaining about the crazies from the beginning I must apologize. I am sorry I got you into this, and I too am hoping he loses interest before next year!
Okay back to the crazies: Our particular Den leader is a nice woman but her son is completely out of control, and she never reins him in. Instead of talking to the kids to keep them interested she litters her speech to them with little anecdotes for the parents (I can tell that the other parents care as little for her stories as I do). Then she has to wait until the kids calm down again before she continues. What is supposed to be an hour long meeting takes 3. Today was no exception.
The Pack leader is the king of all crazies; I don’t think he does anything else. I don’t get it. I love my kids beyond measure, but I have a hard time with other kids. I tease D all the time that he doesn’t like people, and likes other people’s kids even less. After this Cub Scout experience I am feeling the same way.
How about parents start taking responsibility for their children’s behavior? Teaching them to be respectful? Basic Manners? I always make my sons take their caps off when we enter a building, and our den leader asked me why I have them do that. Seriously?! Manners. The same reason why the young should give up their seats for the elderly. Manners. The same reason you stand when you meet someone new. Listening when someone else is talking. Being a good sport and a gracious winner. Manners. Manners. Manners.
I thought Cub Scouts was about teaching young boys? Shouldn’t we be teaching them manners above all?

TV vs. SLEEP

So while the husband is deployed I get to watch lots of "girly" television: shows about buying houses, having babies, getting married, but mostly I watch PBS. Masterpeice Mystery, Masterpiece Classics, etc..... I can't get enough, I will watch the same show all week if they are showing it....I may have a serious addiction.
The only problem is that this really cuts into my sleep. The boys are tucked snuggly into bed by 7:30ish each night. I then usually spend some time trolling Facebook doing housework,  so by 9 I am ready to put on my "comfy clothes" and sit squarely in front of the TV. The last several weeks I have been staying up till near midnight almost every night. You may be thinking that is not too late, but when the boys wake at 6:30am so do I.
I know, of course, that sleep helps you maintain a healthy weight, stress management and a whole host of other things.
Most evenings I say to myself "okay I am going to go to bed at 10) but then I want to see which flat in Paris they decided to buy...or how Miss Marple solve a murder. I'm hopeless.

The Dog

In February of 2010, we adopted a dog. All the boys of the house love the animal, and Piper is a good dog. I did not grow up with any pets in the house (aside from my little brother's hamsters...but that is a whole other story), certainly no dogs or cats. However we did have dogs and cats outside, they had the run of the property and barn. I never became much attached to the cats, "barn cats" came and went and rarely were given names. I did though, become attached to the dogs we'd had. So naturally I thought that over time, I would develop an attachment to this dog.
Well, it's been over a year and I have no personal attachment. I hear often people talk about their pets as children or the very least companions, I don't feel that way. She is more like laundry than a companion...a task. Fortunately for her, she is much loved in this house especially by L, to a lesser extent H and D. I don't dislike the dog, I'm just not attached. I clean up after my children and husband all day, I like them. I just can't stand the dog hair. I don't like not being able to go away for the whole day without lining up someone to come let the dog out. I feel tied to the house.
Isn't it amazing that when you write just to write, though you may not be looking for the answers you find them in your own words. "I feel tied to the house” That’s what it is......