Sick of being me

Do you ever get tired of being yourself?

Today I'm sick to death of being me. I'm tired of my crazy brain; of constantly needing attention, of the mind games and drama. I'm exhausted from my inability to control myself when the kids misbehave (for the gazillionth time) or when there's chocolate in the cupboard. I'm fed up with looking at my fat self in the mirror, wondering what the scale will say today and why isn't the exercise helping?!?!

I can no longer avoid the fact that I'm a bad, selfish, mean person pretending to be a good, caring, nice person. I would dearly love to be someone else for awhile.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about trading lives with someone else. I love my life! I have a great family, a comfortable home, lots of modern conveniences, neighbors that I get along with. Life is good! I just want to change who I am fundamentally, from the inside out. You know, look at a new face in the mirror, listen to new thoughts in my head. Do you ever feel that way? or is my BPD just getting the better of me today?

Garden and giggles

I love my garden. I remember being a little kid, sitting on the edge of the garden staring at the rows that I was supposed to be weeding. I hated weeding! Now I can't seem to get enough of it! I love seeing plants growing beautifully like this corn.....

...but that OCD part of my brain would much rather see this recently weeded patch:

I know, I'm crazy. What can I say? Here's our great potato experiment (it's going well, in case you were wondering):

And the green beans are starting to flower. Hooray!

Now for the giggles: Kai has had bowel issues since he started potty training. Namely, once we introduced the toilet, he stopped pooping.

We tried everything to get him regular again and finally settled into a good routine, part of which is M&M rewards. When he poops, he gets M&Ms.

Anyway, since he's starting kindergarten in a few weeks we've been discussing dropping the M&Ms from his routine. Not surprisingly, he hasn't been real pleased with that idea.

So last night he did his business and then came into our bedroom and said: "So am I going off M&Ms?" Trying not to smile, I said: "Are you a big boy?"

"Yes" Came the sad reply. "Do you think you can poop without M&Ms?"

"Yes" Even sadder. Big sigh. "I'm hungry!" And he skipped out of the room.

Now, I don't know if we're done with M&Ms, but I sure got a good chuckle out of that.

The nose knows

When I was pregnant with Chloe, I developed "super pregnant sniffer". I discovered a whole new world of smell and most of it was bad. I assumed (foolishly) that things would get better after she was born. HAH! The following two pregnancies just made things worse and worse until now when I have a sense of smell equivalent to a mega super cyborg whose sole purpose in life is to sniff things.

Anyway, because of this new handicap, um I mean ABILITY, I spend a considerable amount of time thinking about smells. Especially in the summer when everything around me is twice it's usual temperature which leads to aromas of unbelieveable strength and pungency. Take hay, for instance. We live in a rural community with lots of farms and dairies (more about them later). I'm a big fan of the smell of fresh cut hay (even though it makes me sneeze) but after the hay has been fermenting in the sun for a few days I'm really wishing for a little more Febreeze! Then there are the dairies. I think most barnyard animals (including cows) smell good and natural until the natural byproduct of their existence is laying on the ground at the dairy in the hot sun for about a week. That smell just about puts me off milk! Of course, not all natural smells are good. Skunks smell bad alive or dead by the side of the road. Phew!

I guess I shouldn't complain, our old house is very close to some oil refineries where they burn off chemicals at night. Those smells will peel the paint off your house! Not to mention the Great Salt Lake. When the wind was just right we got to enjoy the smell of acres and acres of marshy, rotting vegetation. Ugh!

There are good summer smells, too. Warm strawberries and raspberries smell fantastic. Freshly turned dirt in the garden is good and also new mown grass (which also makes me sneeze). Oh, and onions still in the ground make for a lovely, fragrant garden. Mmmmmm. Maybe I'll go eat some chocolate. That smells good!

Stupid lazy clouds

Okay, I'll admit it, I'm a weather malcontent. Unless the temperature is in the mid to upper 70s with a slight breeze, I generally hate it. That being said, we are now in the throes of my LEAST favorite weather time of the year. It's hot (mid to upper 90s) and sunny all day until the late afternoon. Let's not overlook the fact that there are 12 gazillion hours of daylight PER DAY in July and August. Then moisture oozes in sometime around dinner, causing clouds to boil up, not dropping the temperature AT ALL and not actually producing any rain.

The clouds, of course, stick around all night until about 6am when they magically disappear and the whole cycle starts all over again. I've decided that these clouds are just lazy. Honestly, if they'd just dump all the moisture as rain when they boil up in the first place, then they could go away and my house would cool off and I would get some sleep! Stupid lazy clouds!