another Taste of NaNo

I ask for one simple favor and it's like I have to scream at the top of my lungs to get any kind of attention around here. It makes me so angry I just...I'll smash everything! Destroy it all! Every stinking thing in my way, obliterated! No one does anything right around here, I feel like I've got to do everything myself and people keep getting in my way! I've got to talk to management about this, because it has gotten way out of hand.

Of course you can't go to management with any kind of complaint these days because it always comes back to male versus female. Stupid bureaucrats, yes, I'm a girl, but that doesn't mean I'm being irrational. Maybe age has something to do with it, but anyone could look at me and agree that I am not overreacting. Anyone would be upset. Even you.

And it's not just the people, more about them later, but it's this whole place. Everything is so difficult and it doesn't have to be. First of all, I can never find what I'm looking for. Seems like everything is kept on shelves that are unreasonably high and always out of reach at the most inconvenient times. And picking your way through this place is a joke. I'm always tripping over things or people are tripping over me All the time. I'm not even exaggerating. It happens all the time. Is it so hard to watch where you're going?

But the people, good grief, some days I just don't know how to deal with these people. They are so demanding, so controlling, and so overbearing. They are extremely particular about where I go and what I do. It's like I'm always being watched! Is it any wonder I broke down crying this afternoon? And don't tell me it's a girl-thing, because I swear I will scream if you say it. I feel like I'm at the end of my rope, just so sick and tired of it all. Sick and tired...tired...

I am tired, now you mention it. No, I don't want to nap! I don't want to! Is that my crib? No, I don't want to! I don't! I...my blanket? I love my blanket. So soft...so nice...so tired...maybe just...a little nap...

This snippet was inspired by my daughter, who is 15 months old and complains to me constantly about the state of things.

random NaNo excerpt

I think truth would be offered freely 

if the question were asked and there were room to receive it, 

but my mouth is full of high-fructose corn syrup and genetically modified organisms 

and my nose is full of pollution and ozone 

and my eyes are filled with hollow lights of screens and apps and magazine ads 

and my hands are full of plastic parts and metal tubing and green printed paper of imaginary worth 

and my ears are filled with angry cries of masses of the forgotten 

and despair of generations past 

and lies of those who call themselves my leaders. 

My soul sorrows and sorrow is my truth.

still On Track for 50,000

Been working like a fiend on NaNoWriMo this year. Not sure why I feel so driven, I'm not even pursuing a definite storyline, but I'm flying towards 50,000 words!
(find me on NaNoWriMo.org here, btw. We should be nano-buddies.)

I'm hoping to bust out another 1,000 in the next 30 minutes, so I don't have a lot of time to write here.
This blog doesn't count toward NaNo, so, I can't be seen here with you. I mean, I still love you and everything, it's just word distribution. You understand.

To satiate your obvious addiction to my glorious word-smithing (ha! yeah right), here's a small tidbit I wrote while warming up today.

 Arms

Thighs

Cankles

Two parts carrot juice

One part sewing kit

Some assembly required

Trimming

Stitching

Rearrangement

Change the body you have today

Don't be afraid of trimming too much

Smaller is always better

Tighten

Lengthen

Straighten

Almost ready for display

Still too much around the middle

Still too ugly to be seen

Softer

Smaller

Lighter

Hollow out what's left of the inside

Opinion, intellect, self-respect and character

These will not be needed

Slender

Delicate

Perfect

Every inch thoroughly examined

All undesirable features now gone

For display use only

As Promised...

I present to you, in all its glory, a comic page.

I want this little project to count towards my NaNoWriMo word count, I feel that it should since graphic novels are a valid and challenging form of story-telling. 

But here's the conundrum - 

- how many words should this qualify as? It takes a freaking long time to draw a page. Most published graphic novels have at least four people listed in the credits: the writer, the artist, the inker, and the letterer. 

Doing it yourself takes a loooot of time. 

I want to do more of these but I need a system to quantify the work. Something simple: 1,000 words per graphic page, or 100 words per panel. It's got to be fair, but still challenging. 

How many words do you think this page deserves?

artist Version of NaNo

I drew a comic page last night.

"Comic page"? It wasn't a comic, it was a graphic novel. But it's not really a "novel" because it is only one page long. What is the terminology for such a thing? Anyone out there "in the know" want to let me in on it? I'll let you use "quotation marks" if you'd like.

The script didn't take long to hammer out and the panels didn't take too long to place.

Drawing is what took for.ev.er.

Maybe I'm out of practice or maybe I'm just slow, but I did not expect a rough draft to take me 2 hours. (ugh! embarrassing!)
It's not even finished, yet. I've got to scan it into the computer and do the rest of it digitally. Doing it on the computer will save time in some areas, but I'm planning (tentatively) another 2 hours (if it takes more than that, I'm quitting).

I count 'graphic novel' as being part of NaNoWriMo (cuz it's my nanowrimo, I'll do what I want), but how many words would this be equivalent to? The whole script is only 50 words, at most, but it's the time, people. The crazy amount of time it takes just to draw a single panel!

I'm wanting to count it as 1,000 words. Straight up, nice and even: 1,000 words.

I'll post the finished project tomorrow (or the next day...or whenever it is done) and you can weigh in on what you think the NaNo word-equivalent should be.

Check back tomorrow (or the next day...or whenever it is done). You'll love it. {wink}

join My NaNoWriMo quest?

I was just re-reading a few posts from 2010, my last year at UVU.
I sounded way more intelligent back then.

What happened?
(you might ask)
Motherhood happened.

Now my brain is mushy. My writing (and my thinking, for that matter) isn't "critical" anymore. I think the most critical thought I have these days is: "When was the last time the baby ate?" followed by "What should I feed the baby?"

It's time for more. It's time for a challenge. It's time for....

NaNoWriMo!

Yes, yes, ladies and gents, step right up, it's that time of year again. National Novel Writing Month. (you might know it as "November".)

But this NaNoWriMo has a surprise twist: I have no idea what I'll be writing.

Seriously. I've been thinking about it for over a month now and I don't have a novel to work on. I can't come up with a storyline that I would want to write about for an entire month. But I've gotta come up with something because November 1st is in TWO DAYS.
(brief panic attack)
Is it kosher to set a goal for 50,000 words, with the allowance that those 50,000 words may or may not be related to each other in purpose? Not sure that counts as participating in NaNoWriMo since it negates the whole "novel" part.
Meh.
Ima do it anyway.

At this point, it will be less like "novel writing month" and more like "epic word-dump month." Scattered short-stories, dream imagery, and probably some hand-drawn graphic novel pages. It promises to be surreal, if nothing else.

I'm not convinced I want to share my epic word-dumping here, on the blog, but it needs to be shared somewhere. It doesn't feel like NaNoWriMo if it's not shared.

So I set up an account on nanowrimo.org, if you search Miss Hobbit you should be able to find me.
If you're already on there, you should look me up and we'll be buddies!

Good luck nanowrimers. :)

love Newton Faulkner forever

If my heart could utter words and those words became a prayer, these would be the words. And if you could hear my heart's prayer and it sounded like a song, it would sound exactly like this:

art Versus writing

I haven't been blogging...

(sorry)

...because I've been doing this:

I'm sure you understand.

Keep coming back, I'll blog again. And it'll be interesting and riveting and true.

Or rambling, snarky and sarcastic.

Either way, I'll be here. Hope you will, too.

Til next time....

Call me Miss Direction

I decided that I was not a good artist. I decided it was too much of a hassle. I decided to give up.

It was stressful, anyway. I would feel good to get the weight of "being an artist" off my shoulders.

It didn't. Feel good, I mean. Not good at all.

And I think it was because I didn't walk away and leave it to die. I forced myself to stay. To watch. I watched my art die.

A slow death.

It might have worked if I had walked away. I'm not sure why I couldn't leave it alone.

The pain of watching a part of myself wither away from neglect was finally too much. I picked it back up and began to nurture it again.

And that's where I am right now. I don't know why I keep coming back to art. I'm no prodigy, I don't specialize in any medium or subject or style, and I have no direction.

I only know I can't let it go. It can't let me go. It needs to take me somewhere and I need to let my guard down and let it lead.

It seems like I should have learned something from this, but I'm still in the dark.

Do you have a part of yourself that you can't ignore? That calls to you, pulls at you, keeps you awake at night? I've never created anything that I would consider to be important, so why the urgency? The tenacity?
Maybe I have the capacity to create something important.
Maybe I overestimate myself.
Maybe I underestimate myself.
Maybe we're all in a chronic state of underestimation.

How about this?
How about I promise to do my very best, to honestly strive to hear what's in my heart and follow its direction. Wherever it takes me. No judgment, doubt, or self-sabotage.

Now you promise to do the same.

something Original!

I asked a guy once what it felt like to wake up.

I was sincerely interested in what his answer would be. Having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I sometimes forget what is "normal" and I wanted to gauge the difference between him and me.

He said (and I quote):

"I dunno. One moment I'm asleep and then I'm awake."

Seriously one of the most disappointing conversations of my life.

I've thought about it a lot since then. Which is why I wrote this:

heavy bones
broken thoughts
consciousness lost in dark tunnels of misty doubt

breathe. in.
and let it go.

light.

open eyes
hazy mind
pain to the edges of sensation and saturated to the soul

breathe. again.
hold it in now.

daylight.

weary heart
soft sadness
closed mind slowly pried away from the forgetful void of sleep

breathe. deep.
yet another morning.

another 100% True, super-Classy Mommy moment

We were at the grocery store, it was late (well, only 8:00, but that is late for a baby), and we were about to check-out when Baby Girl started getting grumpy. She was acting uncomfortable and unhappy. It looked like a diaper issue.

So the husband-man finished checking out and I took the disgruntled baby and headed to the restroom.

I honestly didn't think I was that tired. I mean, I was a little disheveled and it had been a long day....but not enough to explain....ugh. Well, you'll see. Read on.

It started out normal. Walked in, empty room (which is always nice. I hate changing a diaper when it's crowded and busy), changed her diaper with the usual fuss, and while searching for a trash receptacle...

...I spotted a urinal.

This is the part where you're thinking, "Oh my gosh, she's in the MEN'S room!!" and that is a totally normal thought for you to have. After all, I've just said there was a urinal.

Want to know what I thought?

"Huh. I wonder why they put a urinal in the ladies' room. Seems weird."

what is wrong with my brain?!

I simply refused to let myself believe that I had walked into the wrong room. Couldn't believe it. In my mind it was more reasonable to assume that they had remodeled this women's restroom to be compatible for both genders (which would be completely unprecedented in my life experience and yet, as I've said, a far more reasonable explanation) than to admit I had walked into the wrong room. I've never, in my entire life, been in the men's room.

I remained in staunch denial until I walked outside and saw the sign next to the door:

"MEN"

d'oh

I didn't feel too bad about it (store was mostly empty, restroom was empty, no one needed to be embarrassed by this) until we passed a young fellow on our way to the exit who was obviously headed to the men's room. 

And I just knew....you ever have those moments where you just know?...I just knew that he had seen me go in there and had been waiting, in discomfort, for me to come out the entire time.

Sorry, dude. I really am. But thank you, sincerely, for waiting until I left rather than choosing to embarrass me in my error.

P.S. - this has nothing to do with anything, it's just that we're watching the pilot episode of Firefly while I'm writing this and holy crap! The storytelling in this episode is AMAZING. It's been over 10 years and I'm still freaking upset with effing FOX for canning that show.

grumblegrumble Effing stupid *bleepity bleeping* morons at that *bleep bleeping* crap network grumble....

I'm already There

Remember my post about putting down roots and creating a place of permanence for myself?

PSYCH!

Rug was pulled out from under me again. Husband was laid off a couple of weeks ago.

I'll always be a transient. Might as well join a troupe of gypsies.

(is it a troupe? a pack? a bunch of? seriously, what am I saying?)

So we're digging through the unemployment rubbish pile again. Can't seem to stay away from it. You'd think I loved sorting through dead-end opportunities and sad realizations.

I don't, by the way. I detest it.

Let's fast-forward a few years/decades, can we?

We're sitting, you and I, at a table, outdoor cafe, quaint part of Matera, Italy. The kids are running around town with our respective spouses and we're having a pleasant chat over gazpacho. The kind of chat we won't remember the details of the next day but will fondly recall ten years from now.
And you say, "What a great way to spend the month of June."
And I say, "It absolutely is. We should do this every summer. Only next year let's visit Vienna."
"Sounds lovely."
And the sunlight illuminates the puzzlework stone city in a way that makes your heart lift and cleanses your soul. There we sit, both awash in a beautiful ache to stay there forever and taking comfort in the thought of home.

I Need more off-Duty time

Traveling back to Utah and staying for a week really messed up the baby's sleep schedule.

(for those who are not parents, let me quickly explain: the parent's life revolves around the baby's sleep schedule. every plan, every activity, every thought absolutely depends on the stability of the baby's sleep schedule. this post may seem trivial but, I assure you, it is of the utmost importance.)

Today gave me hope that her internal clock would automatically reset itself. Because Nature is awesome that way, right?

She was out like a light at 12:30 in the afternoon and didn't stir for 3 hours (!!). It was amazing and I thought,
'Fantastic. Next time she gets tired it'll be time to go to bed anyway and she'll be back to going to bed early in the evening.'

(I like it when she goes to bed early in the evening, say 7 or 8, because then I get a few hours to myself. Off-duty time, if you will.)

As planned, she started rubbing her eyes around 7 and making the I'm-tired-and-grumpy-about-it-but-I-want-to-keep-playing whimper (it's a very distinctive whimper). She was down and out by 7:30 and I was reveling in the silence by 8:00.

And at 9:00, emerging from the nursery, were the okay-I'm-awake-from-my-nap-now-let's-go-play sounds (great sounds to hear in the afternoon, but definitely not okay at nine o'clock at night)

I take it all back. Nature sucks and the Universe hates me.

It's been about an hour now and I think she's finally gotten the point: It's Night. Sleep. SLEEP. SLEEP.

It put a serious dent in my off-duty time, though.

It's too bad Motherhood doesn't come with vacation or sick days, because I would seriously cash some of those in right now.

DawgArt: Things I've Learned From My Cat by Alicia VanNoy Call

My friend wrote this and I'm sharing it because I agree with it. I think I would be a healthier human being if I lived more like this cat:

DawgArt: Things I've Learned From My Cat: My husband's cat is named Kiko.  She wasn't very happy when he brought me into the picture.  And I am not a cat person. So, Kiko a...

one Of My less classy Moments

The other day, the baby was acting a bit odd. Fussy. Clingy. Uncomfortable. I figured she was just tired. After a 3 hour nap (three hours, I kid you not!) she woke up and was still fussy, clingy and uncomfortable. She was also alarmingly hot to the touch.

My "mommy-senses" started tingling and I immediately called the pediatrician's office.

By the way. Mother's intuition. It's a real thing. It's wacky, too. Don't underestimate its power.

They said if I could get there in 20 minutes then someone could see me. We live a whopping 5 minute drive up the road. Yes, thank you, I'll be there.

Here's the thing. I thought they meant, "be here within the next 20 minutes and we'll save your ailing daughter" but what they meant was, "we'll pencil you in for an appointment in half an hour, but come in 20 minutes just in case there's paperwork." These are two very different statements, as I now know.

So I, frazzled and worried, frantically threw on my slip-on shoes and scrabbled for my purse while my husband got her into her carseat, and then we were OFF! There was not a moment to lose!!

I showed up at 3:15 and as I was signing in I asked, "What time, exactly, is my appointment set for?" The nurse answered nonchalantly, "3:40."

O.O
Whaaaat?

You're telling me I've got to wait with a feverish baby for another (quick, do math) twenty-five minutes??
Fine. You know what? Fine. Whatever.

So we went into the waiting room and I rocked, bounced, and spoke in soothing tones as some mortifying realizations came to me....

...I had not showered yet that day. I hadn't been planning on going anywhere, so showering hadn't been high on that day's to-do list. My hair was a bit on the grungy side, as a result. Not only that, but I wasn't even technically dressed (don't panic! let me explain!!). I had changed my pajama pants out for some comfortable capris, but I hadn't bothered changing my shirt (again, I wasn't going to go anywhere, why bother?). I was still wearing the raggedy, over-sized t-shirt with holes in it, that I had slept in the night before. And guess what, that also means I hadn't changed into a normal bra, I was still wearing my "nursing sleep bra" (for you guys and gals that didn't know there was a difference in bra types, now you know. It's extremely comfortable, too, by the way, I just don't think it was ever meant to be worn in public...). Remember how I hadn't showered? Yeah, that means I hadn't shaved that day, either. It was nothing morbid, just a bit prickly. Noticeably so.

But wait, there's more.

I had a chance to see myself briefly in a mirror while I was waiting and that very day (oh gawsh this is awful, and it's going to sound made up, but it's completely true) I had this obnoxious pimple on the very end of my nose, dead center, that was absolutely impossible to miss and impossible not to gawk at (why, oh why, do I feel compelled to confess these things here?). Of course, as per my usual, I was not wearing a speck of makeup. There was no way to hide the mess that I was. Not even a little.

And it occurred to me that I could have used those 25 minutes to make myself a tad more presentable instead of awkwardly dodging looks from the other mothers in the waiting area. I felt like such an idiot for rushing out of the house in a blind panic the way I did. I had plenty of time, I could have at least glanced in a mirror, for pity's sake!

(I'd say "live and learn" right here, but I'll probably do it again.)

(...and again and again...)

I'm sure most of them were looking at this greasy, unseemly, stressed out mess of a woman and thinking, "Geez, she could at least take some pride in her appearance, if not for her sake then for ours."
I can accept that, as long as I'm allowed to delude myself into believing that at least one person witnessed the spectacle that was me and thought, "Now there's an obviously concerned mother who would sacrifice her own pride for her child's welfare. Good for her. I hope her baby's alright."

Thank you, person-I-just-made-up-in-my-head. Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt. If you were real, we'd probably be bestest buddies and watch Star Trek together in our pajamas. You're a good soul.



Note: The baby is alright now. She had a startling fever of 104.2 (Faranheit) but she got through it just fine.

the Adulthood facade

I'm slowly but surely being inducted into a group of mothers. We talk about "mom stuff." You know, pediatrician visits, where to get cheap kid's clothing, funny kid moments and embarrassing mother-of-the-year moments.

I'm pretty good at pretending to be an adult with this group. I think I've got them fooled.

After these camaraderie visits, I go home, set the baby on the floor with her toys and I play video games for awhile. Read webcomics. Draw goofy comicstrips in my sketchbook.
I'm 26 but I still pass the time like a 16 year old.

It amuses me to imagine what the other mothers would think if they could see my typical afternoons.

In my defense, I did vacuum today. AND cooked breakfast. AND did laundry. I'm not a total loafer.

Granted, I haven't showered, done dishes, or swept...BUT my Jester in Gauntlet: Dark Legacy is now at level 50. So, you know...

...obviously I've been busy today.

I crave Knowledge And experience, But Mostly poetry

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun...there are millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand...nor look through the eyes of the dead...nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

~Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Pre-baby reminiscences

I just finished reading "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green.
It is a beautiful book. I'm so jealous at John Green's cleverness and wit. It was funny and moving and heart-breaking.

It made me want to write.

If only I had something to write about.

If only I could write something beautiful. Or meaningful. Or insightful. Or even just slightly humorous.

I would settle for slightly humorous.

My creativity has been crowded out of my mind; there's no room for it now, what with all the space being taken up by baby sleeping schedules and baby eating habits and baby finger food lists and baby board books to read and baby age appropriate activities.

 I love my baby girl to the end of time and back, but I do miss my pre-baby mind. Post-baby brain feels like day-old oatmeal.

I'm told that I'll get my old brain back someday. And that it will be even better, sharper, and broader for the experience of motherhood.

I hope that's true but I suspect it's just something we new mothers say to each other to keep the constant demands of motherhood from crushing our morale.

And that's all I have to write about. I'm unsatisfied with it, but I suppose it's not nothing.

is It Tired in Here or is it Just me?

I'm blogging on my back porch.

Think about that for a moment.

Blogging. Out-of-doors.

I friggin' love living in this century.

The temperature outside right now is perfect. Bing is telling me it's 77 degrees. It feels like...fantastic with a hint of deliciousness. Can air be delicious? Well it is.

Next problem this century needs to tackle is eliminating bugs whilst blogging out-of-doors. Ugh.

I put the baby down for the night but now she's awake, sobbing, again. Good grief, what am I going to do with that child? Just go to sleep, kid! We will both feel so much better when you do!

Well, the daylight is completely gone and the mosquitoes are out, which means I'm going back inside.
But it doesn't matter! I still love living in this century, mosquitoes be damned! (or "darned." whatevs.)

Confession time:
I have nothing of interest to blog about tonight. Sorry.
I'm not even sure why I'm here. I thought I was doing a little Pilates and then going to bed, but I found myself opening up blogger instead.

Yeah. Weird.

Here's a morsel of substantial thought, savor it:

My heart is reminiscent of Swiss cheese - swollen and bulging in places, too full of affection and gratitude to be contained, but also pocked and disfigured by gaping holes of loss and regret. I keep waiting for the love, comfort, and abundance to patch up the holes, but they never do. I feel the fullness just as keenly as I feel the aching void. Maybe this disfiguration is what a human heart is meant to look like. This is what Life makes us.

hooked On Matheson

I'm currently reading Button, Button (uncanny stories) by Richard Matheson and it's fantastic.

I'm on the short story "Mute" and I want to go on but I can't get past,

Sounds could cover fragile, darting symbols with a hideous, restraining dough, dough that would be baked in ovens of articulation, then chopped into the stunted lengths of words.

Right??

I could never have even conceived of such word combinations, let alone the concept behind them. Matheson crafts language in a way that makes my own word-smithing look like the scribbles of a child.

 If you ever get a chance to read Matheson's short story, "Pattern for Survival" you should, because it's fabulous.

transplant Transition

It's good to have a home. Yet, I still find it hard to relax into it.

I've lived a nomadic life for years. My entire adult life, in fact. It was perhaps under the guise of permanence, but underneath it all, I knew better.

Everywhere I've been since I was 18 has been temporary. Everything I owned could be stuffed into my car; boxed up and carried away. I kept boxes at the ready and spent my life waiting until it was time to leave again. Eight years, just short of a decade, of transience.

After uprooting myself the first two or three times, I just decided to stop putting down roots.

How many times did I move in those eight years? ...1...2...3...11. Eleven times, including this last move.

The last two or three years I struggled with an elusive wander-lust and an ache for a home that didn't exist. I had called many places "home" but I had never felt that I was home. I was searching for a feeling that I hadn't felt in so long, I wasn't entirely sure I would know it when I found it again.

Now I find myself in a situation of solidarity. The promise of permanence. I have received my cue to get comfortable, settle in and set up a root system.

Truly, I'm thrilled beyond words. This is what I've waited for. This is what I've been looking for.

But it's still hard to put down roots. It's hard to trust that the ground beneath me will still be here a year from now. Six months from now. One month from now. It's the only way I know how to think.

There are no assurances I could ask for that have not already been received.

I'm surprised at how unnatural this feels.

I've seen plants thrive in the flower pot, but upon being transplanted to the raw soil of Mother earth, the system goes into shock and fails.

I do not anticipate failure, but I understand now the shock.

where Was I Going with this?

I don't actually remember the last time I wrote on this blog.

So I'm here.

So acknowledge me.

We moved to Arizona last month. I live in a house now. We're renting, but still. A house! My very own house! :) Sure beats a dark, cramped basement. My baby girl has her very own room (a "nursery," if you will. fancy fancy.) and I have a ginormous closet and a back yard and a sunny porch.

I don't think of myself as a superficial person, but it's amazing what personal space and a consistent income can do for one's general disposition.

Plus! The Precious (baby) is learning how to put herself back to sleep when she wakes up in the night. In her own crib. In her own room. Which translates to me getting a full night's sleep for the first time in months.

If you ever need a mood-booster, try sleep deprivation for months at a time, and just before you start hearing voices in your head and getting suicidal, let yourself sleep for 6 straight hours.
You'll feel amazing. Personal experience talking here.

(Whoever came up with the idea of babies that need their mothers to wake up every few hours to feed/check on/soothe them back to sleep was a frickin' idiot. Or just a jerk. Motherhood needs to be completely re-designed. I'll get my committee on it right away.)

I think miss Precious over there has entertained herself as long as she can stand. We're leaving Happy Coos and wandering into Frantic Squeals territory.

Thanks for your acknowledgement.

Until next time.

I'm so tired It physically Hurts

The baby won't fall asleep

Bleeeeeegh....

and it's after midnight and I've used all my newly acquired "mommy tricks" and nothing is working. She just refuses to sleep. Even though it's dark and there's nothing to listen to and there's nothing to see and there's nothing TO DO other than freaking fall asleep.

I keep trying to convince her that it's boring to stay awake at night, but she knows I'm lying.

So she tortures herself (and me) and fights to stay awake. Which means she gets irritable and restless and fussy, which escalates to screaming and wailing and general misery.

I hope this phase ends soon.

Reeeeeally soon.

So I'm ripping music onto my new laptop while I listen to her cry and fuss in the other room. The mechanical swing and I trade shifts in coaxing the baby to sleep. It's usually a better coaxer than I am, truth be told.

Aaaah...hark...I hear silence. The swing has done it's job again. Thank you Fisher Price.

hasty And Poorly written arizona Update

My husband got a job working for the beautiful city of Sedona, Arizona. So after living in Utah for 18 years, I packed up up my 6 month baby and started the process of moving down to AZ to be with my husband.

I'm very excited.

We found a little blue house with a porch and an apricot tree and decided to move over President's Day weekend.

This is how it's gone so far:

On the 11th I called the landlord (Chuck) to remind him that we wanted to move on the 15th and asked if that would work for him.
He said that would be fine. The previous tenants were still there, but he was hoping they would be out by the end of that day and then he'd clean the house and it would be ready for us by Friday.

Awesome.

So on Thursday we got the moving truck packed and prepared leave bright and early the next morning. That night Chuck called me,
"Hey, uhm...we have a unique situation. The tenants...they're still here. In the house."
"Say what?"
"Yeah. They keep telling me that they're leaving and that they want out, but they still haven't completely moved out. They are 90% out right now."
"Well we're ready to hit the road tomorrow morning. What are you saying we should do?"
"Well...come anyway, just leave a little later. I'll call you when they're out, you can hit the road, we'll clean the house while you're on the road and it'll be ready for you when you get here."
"Fantastic."

The next morning, Friday, he called me at 10:00 and gave us the go-ahead. So we piled into our cars and headed for Arizona.

At 11:00 he called me back.
"Hey, uhm...we have a unique situation. Right now, as we're speaking, PANT is surrounding the house."
(PANT = Prevention Against Narcotics Trafficking, in layman's terms: the local narcotics squad, in further layman's terms: picture a SWAT team and you can pretty much imagine how it went down)
"Say wha-?"
 "They have a .50 caliber weapon pointed at the front door and there are snipers posted on the rooftops across the street."
"....Say wha-?"
"There are also two armored vehicles and the street has been closed off on both ends."
"...."
"I know."

Apparently the previous tenant was bad news. He had broken into someone's home, some dispute over marijuana, at 3:00 am Friday morning and had been shot. He was in critical condition in a hospital in Flagstaff. It being a violent crime, the police investigated the incident, found his current address and initiated a drug raid on the house.
My house.
The day I was supposed to move in.

This is all completely true. I can't make things like this up. It made the front page news of the local newspaper, The Verde Independent.
Check it out here.

See the cute blue house they're breaking into in the picture?
Yeah.
That's supposed to be my house.

This caused all kinds of problems for our moving-in plans. Chuck didn't have legal right to get on the property to prepare it for us; the previous tenant wasn't moving his stuff out because he was lying in a hospital fighting for his life in another town; and I was on a long empty road to Arizona with all my belongings - no home to go back to and unsure of whether I had a home to go toward. Chuck, being the gracious and honest fellow that he is, offered to let us stay in his farmhouse property in Cornville (little town south of Sedona) until it could all get sorted out.

We arrived in Cornville late Friday night and have been here since then. A Termination of Lease form has been signed and witnessed, my husband and I have signed a new lease, and Monday morning we were able to unload our belongings into the main room of the house. Now we're waiting for the paint to dry and for the kitchen and bathroom floors to be redone (the bathroom floor turned out to be completely rotten, by the way - just one more inconvenience in our little saga). Hopefully we'll be in the house tomorrow morning/afternoon.

But I'm not holding my breath.

I'll try to keep you posted. I don't have constant access to the internet so the updates will be a bit scattered, but I'll update when I can. Thanks to everyone for your support!

winter Blues haikus

Empty neighborhood
Shovel on ice and cement
The loneliest sound

Too cold for a walk
Pale sunshine devoid of warmth
Stuck inside again

Sheets of windblown ice
Fluffy, wet, sticky snowflakes
Hazardous driving

Morning light at dawn
A handful of daylight hours
Sunset comes too soon

(I'm moving to Arizona, by the way. After this Friday, no more winter blues for me!)

"Or" has Got To Be my Favorite conjunction

The baby is asleep so I can blog!

Or watch The 10th Kingdom.

Or play Boggle with some awesome people.

Or read another chapter of Fellowship of the Ring.

Or like a billion other things that my baby has distracted me from doing.

All of those things, however, share the ultimate goal of helping me to avoid The Real World.

The Real World:

Taking care of my car (replenishing the coolant, checking the tire pressure, oil levels, etc etc etc), depositing my husband's paycheck and then budgeting our bills, calling my daughter's pediatrician to negotiate her immunization schedule, tracking down W2s and other pertinent tax information to get started on our tax return for 2012, and probably another dozen things that I've avoided and procrastinated so well that I've forgotten they ever existed.

On top of all this add the fact that I'm very tired and my brain is completely fried. You can see why I'm employing all my best avoidance skills and vaguely hoping The Real World will be easier to tackle tomorrow.

Or maybe after the weekend.

Or maybe someone else will do it for me.

Ooh! Ooh! I know what I want to do while the baby naps. I've made my decision:

{drumroll}

I'm going to nap, too.

Don't judge me, Real World. I feel good about my life choices. I don't need your approval.