I have not yet decided if this quote sets me free or makes me want to put my head in the oven. Which as it’s an electric oven would probably just burn the fuck out of me and not put me out of my misery.

It explains a lot. It explains why everything in my life is so gottdamned hard right now. Everything is new and comes with a learning curve as steep as the first hill of a roller coaster ride.

All of my floundering at work – explained.

The need to scream it out – explained.

Wide eyed at being the head of household – explained.

Not measuring up to my own expectations of being Alex’s mommy – explained.

I’m a beginner at pretty much everything I’m doing these days. I’m living in the gap. I’ve never lived in the gap before. I’ve been AWESOME or I’ve moved on. The idea of being “not that good” for a COUPLE OF YEARS. Seriously? Wow and OMG. See also *facepalm* and *headdesk*.

That couple of years sounds like it could be pretty optimistic. What if . . . I mean what if . . . I never get past disappointed? Yuck-o.

I’m knitting a sweater right now. I’ve redone it once already. I’d like to rip it out and do it again, but I’m forcing myself to move on through and be done with it. Like that deadline thing – okay, finish one project – move to the next.

Have I mentioned I suck at project completion?

Then there’s anything that resembles romance. I think we can all agree that my last relationship that involved the words “my” and “boyfriend” and sharing house keys ended in total disaster. How scared am I to risk my heart?

Here’s where my train of thought actually leads. I’m not gloomy about this. I am ponderous. (That’s ponderous man . . . truly ponderous . . . ) Things don’t feel coincidental in my life right now. Everything from my horoscope to my therapist telling me to focus on what is most important and then this quote from some guy I’ve never heard of.

Ultimately that quote, to me, is all about focus – focus on what is most important, so I can do the work, so I can get past the beginner stage, so I can get past the disappointment stage, so I can get to where my life is as good as my ambitions.

I’m actually left with optimism. I gotta do the best I can with what I know right now. Focus on now so that future can build itself. Let out the mighty YAWP and do this thing.

On very little sleep.

After waking and having to adjust my attitude.

With caffeine and cute shoes.

And some nasty breakfast pizza. Fine, it wasn’t nasty, it was pleasurable in a totally guilty kind of way. Like all convenience store food.

I worked solid today. Purposefully. I didn’t get to do everything I planned, but when something went awry, no big, I moved on to the next thing. I was shocked to look up and see the clock at 245. As usual, I have no clue what I did today in the blur of one student after another, gears switching all around. I know I wrote down what I did. I know I even got some plans made for future days. I know my classroom isn’t any messier than it was when I walked in.

Even if my desk is still a disaster. Whoo-ee.

I mean WOW.

Alex is puny. He SLEPT at school today. Woke up, cried, went to the nurse, Daddy got the call and brought him home early.

After hanging my living room curtains. Dear Scout, Thank you. So much.

I went to the grocery store alone. Finally rich enough to shop at Aldi again (Dude’s ya gotta actually have CASH to shop there.)

I came home. I MADE DINNER. It had a meat and a fruit in it.

I put beef in the crockpot so I would have food for tomorrow. I am laying in bed and I can smell it back here. Is it bad to want beef for breakfast? If it’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.

I made a phone call. I calmly left a message regarding some money *ahem* owed to me. I actually got a return call with desired results. Pack a coat on Thursday – Hell is scheduled to freeze completely over at 345pm. Till then it’s just a little nippy.

I repriced some destash yarn in my etsy shop – want some yarn? Say yes. Please.

I’ve eaten a yummy yummy Xanax so I can make up for the sleep I didn’t get last night.

I’m not blowing sunshine from places where sun don’t shine. I had some rough moments today. I have some things to deal with tomorrow. Today has been a good day. I CHOSE for it to be a good day. Same goes for tomorrow.

Selfishly and slightly sane,

Love Dawn

ps You smell like pine and your face is like sunshine.

I mean, I have a pretty good idea of what I hold most dear, but this is even more specific to me, what do I want to create in me, in my little world. Like the “at the end of my life what will matter most” kind of perspective.

Tonight I was thinking about that while Alex was splashing the day away in the bathtub.

He’s most important. At the end of my life I want him to look back at HIS life and know he was loved.

I look back on my life and the things I appreciate most are my grandma and her regular (see: seven, noon, and six like clockwork) meals at the table, homes that are more or less clean and tidy, and never having to fish out the least dirty pair of pants to wear to work.

So I have my focus – Alex needs a home, Alex needs meals, Alex needs clean clothes. Mommy gets to reap the benefits of a clean home, good meals and clean clothes. Alex also needs played like a puppy. Which the more I do that, the more I will benefit in lower numbers on the scale.

For October, these are the 4 ways I am focusing on getting my act together. There is so much more that needs to come, but these are my starts.

Let there be clean floors and let them begin with me.

I was thinking about a Kindergarten boy, so small he has a booster seat on the bus, I found out today his mom just might be dying. It’s her heart. She has good days and bad days, but she HAS days.

I felt my own heart sway and shudder for him . . . for her . . . for the fact that I know these things

Most of my students are “those kids”. The ones you, deep down in places you don’t talk about at a Scentsy party, are glad aren’t yours.

Collectively my students have

• speech problems
• trach tubes
• g tubes
• hands so non functional that even with multiple surgeries those hands still look . . . I will be kind and say “unpleasant”
• a history of sexual abuse
• head lice
• facial growths
• speech so unintelligible their own parents can’t understand
• IQs below the average range (85 to 115 with 100 being average)
• IQs below 70. Which yes. Makes them “the R word”
• bad teeth
• more bad teeth
• clothes too small
• no bath time
• pull ups
• free lunches
• been shaken as babies
• step parents
• no parents

soap box

I’m not here to preach. I’m totally human. Those hands I mentioned? Oh they freak me right the fuck out. Fair or not, they just do. I won’t judge anyone for what they might fear or what they might think, to themselves, about MY students. Think what you want, but treat my students with some integrity or prepare to deal with ME.

/soapbox

Those little punks LIGHT UP when they see me coming for them. That helps me cope with what I know about them. Their files confess to me like I am a priest.

Today I learned that in my tiny tiny district, we have 30 students identified who are categorized as homeless. THIRTY. out of less than 650. THAT WE KNOW OF. and come on, we know there are more.

My heart. My tenderheart is swayed, and I have to figure out how to cope with that, because this is a marathon. It is September and I have so many months to go, I have to figure out how to go balls to the wall for 8 hours at work, shake it off, and come home to be healthy for myself and so many things to Alex.

My job as a person just got so much larger in this tiny place. So if I’m quiet for a while, it’s because I am over here thinking. I am finding my quiet so I can find a new center, because wow, I am needed and more than ever, my act has to get together so I stay up to this challenge and because I know these things, I can’t look away.

Three years ago today: My Dad died. (email me for the pwd, or leave a comment below)

Two years ago today: I coped with the loss of my dad.

One year ago today: I was married to Scout, staying at home with Alex, failing as a housewife, and settled into life for the next 50 years.

Today: I am living in a different state, I’m a single mom with Alex part time, I am working part time at a university, I just got offered a full time job in a tiny school district for the fall, I call my best friend from high school “boyfriend”, I have this whole extended family that includes his teenage boys and all of their heathen friends, the Dude is taking Alex to his preschool screening today, I have bought a smaller house. I have wanted to pick up the phone and call my dad more than once in the last week. Just that split second thought before realizing, “oh right, I can’t.”

I’m still pushing maximum density (much to my dismay) as documented by this “lovely photo” taken from Alex’s point of view. (I apparently the deleted the original photo – this is the same one … only fuzzy…. you get the idea.)

I *have* at least been to the gym. I’m up to 20 minutes on the ellipitical again. I’m working on my arms with the assisted chin/dip machine. I haven’t done well this week, but I have at least been working on the house, which is better than ass sitting in front of the tv eating TacoBell.*

*I gave up fast food for Lent. I’ve frowned on giving up something that would benefit myself as being rather selfish in the whole idea of Lent, but this year I decided giving up something that would make me healthier, just might, in the end, make me a better person for God to be proud of.

My blogging mojo is variable. If I could just blog my thoughts straight to the computer, I would have so much more to share.

But there it is, my pause in my year to see where I’ve been and where I’m at.

Which will be my . . . thirty . . . . uh . . . next birthday.

3500 calories to a pound. 50 pounds. 175000 calories to burn.

I bought new gym shorts (XL), shirt (mens L) and shoes.

I got on the scale at 188.4 today.

I bought broccoli and vitamin C.

I made a smoothie.

I went to the gym for the first time since . . . November?

I went .9 miles on the elliptical for 115 calories.

174,885 calories to go.

I typically am not a fan of salad because

1. Boring
2. Food touching
3. Hungry by the time I finish eating
4. They don’t make chocolate salads
5. Really good salads are missing bread – and that’s why I like sandwiches better.

She violated item 2 something fierce – This salad had green stuff, strawberries, cranberries, feta, nuts and some vinaigrette. I was mourning the loss of perfectly good strawberries, but tried it anyway and actually liked it.

We paid for a CSA this year – The whole ‘eat local’ thing, along with – if I’m handed a food I wouldn’t normally eat, I’ll figure out a way to hide it so we don’t waste it.

I present to you the CSA Week One Salad

A bunch of green stuff (I don’t know what – 4 kinds of weeds I picked through and stuck in the colander to clean)

Radishes (chopped small so they are hidden), strawberries, cranberries, green onion, almonds, rest of some vinaigrette. Green stuff in a bowl, red stuff on top.

I’m not in love with this concoction, but I figure when the compost scraps looks like this, I must bein doing something good for me.

It bothered me though – partially because it centered funny in the template – a lot because that only told part of the story.

You see, I’m bugged. I’m bugged by this face

This is my grandma – eighteen years old – 1933. Valedictorian of the class of 1933 in her small-town midwest farming community.

The Depression was felt there, I’m sure, but they had their homes, church, school, and the farm.

A glance at a 1930 census shows farmer after farmer. When things really went tits up [I realize talking about LaVerne and "tits up" is just wrong - I can't help myself.] family moved back to the farm because the farm was self sufficient. It had FOOD.

I’m bugged by that girl. She knew how to garden, preserve, cook, provide, clean house, hang laundry out on the line . . .  I could go on but just thinking of going and reading her journals of what she did in a day makes me want to take a nap.

I know I have more fun than she did. I’m certain I worry less. I also know she only had a script for the occasional Valium rather than a daily Zoly.

I want to find a balance between LaVerne and Dawn. I want some freaking self-sufficiency in my world, and I’m learning that it’s going to take some discipline to be free. Which sounds like a contradiction – but I’m the girl who can’t find her license or debit card – I have to find some drum beat to march to.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

1. Health – It’s a back to basics week. Time to eat that z0loft each morning again. Script is refilled, just need to get used to it again. (Explanation – anytime I change my routine, I get messed up on taking it – things like leaving town for a weekend shakes things up just enough that it takes me a while to get back on track. When it’s combined with needing to refill the script it just makes it all the more complicated.) (PS – would a little pill help you? Read here and see what you think.)

2. Beauty. Mascara is my friend. Use it.

3. Home. I’m focusing on the office. I need a home base to work – it’s time to get my computer out of the bedroom (for lots of reasons). I’ll be more apt to actually USE the office if the office is USABLE.

4. Work. Sign up for Self-Starters Weekly Tips. Complete the 4 special orders for Comfed Out Kaiser. Join Mom’s Unite.

It’s a beautiful fall morning. My house is still a mess and my husband is still, as yet, unsatisfied because my legs are still doing an impression of a yeti.

But.

I feel something.

It’s inspiration.

I have thoughts racing around. Ideas. Wants. Dare I call it – excitement? Joy potential?

I’m sitting in our “office”. Also known as the front room space that holds random things and is usually a den of clutter. The room that Scout said he’d like to work on being cleaner.

This is the new heart of my act. The act I’m going to get together.

I’m nothing if not a planner. I’m so flighty that I have to set strict parameters if I’m going to accomplish anything.

I have 4 new areas of focus in this act of mine.

1. Health. Tis time to work on getting healthy. If I happen to become a replica of Kate Walsh in the process, well so be it. I’m sure Scout will learn to cope. I will work weekly on new habits. A lot of this journey will be blogged over at Blissfully Domestic‘s Healthy Bliss channel – because I’m a contributor, which I keep forgetting to tell you about …. probably because I keep forgetting to contribute. But wait! I have a post up today!

2. Beauty. Cuz dudes, Girlfriend needs some work. The potential is here, I just need to do something with it. Nothing dramatic, just things like, say, removing the ponytail, and wearing a bra. I set nice manageable goals here.

3. Home. Home looks like a shitpile of clutter exploded. I’m gonna work on that.

4. Work. I’m overwhelmed (in the best way possible) with the amount of resources I’m coming in contact with. Thank Lynn Terry for that. I’m ready to formulate a plan. Or at least a “pla….” if I can’t quite get the whole plan quite yet.

So here I go. Grab your favorite beverage and let’s take a ride on the “Watch Dawn get her act together express.”

…..

And in a burst of sincerity.

I love y’all.

No really.

You unconditionally let me blast all my grief out onto a webpage and you accept it, and you each take a piece of it from me so I can cope a little more. You take a couple minutes out of your lives to give me a few words of encouragement. I think of you often (yes you, and you, and even you over there who I haven’t visited in a while). You give me luff without asking for any in return.

Thank you. Ya’ll keep me together. I appreciate it.