A Time For Everything

Well, don't I always? ha ha ha!!!

Really more of an update, I guess...

Sonshine needed to get his eyes examined and we made a (Saturday) morning of it. Mostly because the optometrist opened her doors later than I expected. I mentioned a while back that I thought I was at the very beginnings of the big change we women go through. A few months ago, I started having trouble seeing things up close--words on a page or my cross stitch projects, etc. I bought a couple pair of magnifying reading glasses to get me by, but figured I ought to have them professionally evaluated. Glad to report that Dr. Bean said my eyes weren't bad enough to require prescription glasses just yet and that the magnifying reading glasses were fine for a while longer.

Homecoming for Sonshine is next Friday--Saturday was the first homecoming parade in quite a few years. They modified the parade route, so I couldn't walk to it, but the school's not that far, so DD and I met DH up at the school to watch. Sonshine had to march with his JROTC battalion rather than the band.

 In his new uniform as we were leaving to drop him off...







After we dropped him off to get ready for the parade, DD and I went to The Home Depot and I got a pumpkin! (I got other things too, but pictures of that later.)


Before...


After several hours of work, this is the result...

Yeah, I so had to go there! But I wanted another pumpkin, so I bought another at the grocery store...pics of that once I carve it.

How did you spend your weekend?

You know I'm almost tired of being online. I'm not sure why. Might have something to do with my depression. But I feel the need to remove my Internet presence. It just seems like everything is so inter-connected there's no separation and anonymity anymore. Not that I want to necessarily be anonymous, but there's something easy about hiding behind a screen name. Maybe hiding's not the best word. Maybe protecting yourself is a better way to phrase it. Or separating your professional self from your personal self.

But short of removing it all...I'll just stay offline.

I've been keeping busy with lots of other things. Reading, as mentioned Wednesday; cross stitching Christmas projects; football season; just hanging out with my family. Not back to yard work yet though...

One of the things the kids and I do is play Rock Band. It's an Xbox game. I play drums. We go in little cycles and we've been back on again. I like to play for several reasons... mainly because the kids ask and are still willing to let me play with them. I also like to play because of the obvious benefit of music to the brain. Despite the fact that I almost always play the easy setting, it's not always easy. I've found a disparity in what the game deems easy. But I digress... I like to play because I want to keep my brain active and challenged as I grow older and this is a fun way to do it.

It took me ages and ages to earn my first 100% (meaning I didn't miss any notes I was supposed to play), then it took me another age to earn the next. But I've earned two 100%s in the last few weeks!

Here's my most recent accomplishment...Minority by Green Day, one of Sonshine's favorite bands.


How do you like to spend your offline time?

It's been a really long year. Between financial hardships and drug-addicted-daughter woes, 2010 has been dubbed the year from hell. I suffered with mild depression for most of it. It (the depression and the year from hell) probably all started back in November of 2009 when my daddy died. Then it all went down hill from there.

All that to say that I am finally ready to re-enter my life. For the past year I have escaped to/hidden in the Internet and fan fiction. I've made online friends I don't want to lose, but I am definitely ready to live in the real world again.

Tonight, when I got home from work, I actually worked on the spare room--not just thought about it. It was our oldest daughter's room till she moved out and it has been sitting empty (dog beds and water bowl aside) since her departure last June. Part of it was that if she decided to come home, I didn't want her to think we had been eager to be rid of her. But I'm ready to move forward, whether she returns home or not after her stint in jail/drug rehab. So...I dug out the primer and finished painting the chair rail molding and the window trim said daughter started painting and never finished. I still have to paint the bottom portion of the wall where the baseboard molding used to cover and the small sections from behind the outlet covers she didn't take off.

And you know what? It felt good to be active and moving. I've been so sedentary, really sedentary, that I just generally felt weak and lacking energy.

On top of that, I have had an epiphany of sorts. I've come to the conclusion that I don't really want to be a writer. That I don't want to pursue publication. Oh, I enjoy writing and I enjoy learning about different aspects of writing, but getting published is hard and I really don't want to put in the effort and hard work.

I've been trying to figure out what it is I do want to do. And I've come to the conclusion that I want to be a housewife and do whatever the hell I want. If I want to read or write or bake or play a computer game all day or sit in my yard or play with my dogs, then that's what I'd like to be able to do. I really have no grand dreams of being this or that or some other thing. Someday...

Speaking of computer games, I got the second version of a game I had several years ago and have been having fun playing and not putting pressure on myself to write.

It was a good day.