So Much for That

Well. The day came at me with a little more than I was really ready for. The afternoon/evening portion has pretty much sucked rocks. At any rate, I've separated myself from the rest of the family to avoid anymore conflict.

I really wish it was bed time, at this point. There are so many other things I'd rather be doing that feeling like this - helping teen girls find gifts for boyfriends, serving cake at a nursing home, walking twelve chihuahuas.. you get the idea.

I'm tired, I'm sad, I'm angry and I'm confused & it isn't feeling like anyone is going to help any of those feelings go away, at least not in the near future.

Lazy Saturday

Troy is in the living room playing Skyrim, I went out once to take our daughter to her AA meeting & haven't done much since, other than play on Facebook & Pinterest. Our son is out with an old friend of his - one he formerly used with - having lunch & browsing the pawn shops. Troy is worried that he's with him, I'm trusting in the program & our boy's dedication to it & himself.

I occasionally wander into the living room & we talk, sometimes about his college days & living  in the Midwest, or just about the kids, the day, what game each of us is playing. It's a nice, relaxing afternoon. I don't think we take advantage of days like this often enough. Thursday was spent doing yard work, going to a movie and getting things done. Friday was a combination of busy & relaxed. Today is just going to be for recharging, I think. I have an Italian pot roast in the crock pot (one that I last cooked almost 20 years ago & Troy has been asking for since) and I may go & rent a couple of movies later on for watching tonight, but then again, I might not.

I'm just going to take the day as it comes at me. For once.

Spring!

It finally feels like Spring here. The fruit trees are blossoming, the other trees are starting to bed, flowers are coming up & the grass is getting green. Over the past week, we've managed to get the front lawns all clear of leaves & debris, Troy finishing up yesterday with our new leaf blower/vacuum/mulcher, now we just need to get the dead branches & such out of the yard & ready to be picked up on Spring Clean-up Day.

I'm very excited to get started on our gardens and flower beds, too, I want such a nice yard this year & hope that I'll have the time to devote to it this time around. We spend a lot of time in the yard in the warmer months & I want it to be an enjoyable place to hang out, have company, spend quiet time & just relax in.

In other news, our son has been working a lot lately, doing a little bit of everything here in town. He's mostly been outside & it's all been physical labor, which he's finding that he really enjoys. He'll be getting his first paycheck today & is pretty excited about it. Our daughter has been sober & attending AA meetings for 19 days now, we have high hopes for her. She's looking so much healthier, getting things accomplished (like applying for food stamps & health care) and starting to think about the future.

Things are so much different for us this Spring, as compared to just a year ago. We have our son back, clean & sober & trying to make his life work. Our daughter is out of jail & sober, trying to get herself together. So, here's hoping things just keep on improving!

Music Lovers

For most of my life I've been surrounded by music & people who love it. My dad bought me my first record player at an auction when I was about 7, followed that Christmas by a transistor radio. After that came the guitar he bought me at another auction; I loved that guitar. It was red & blonde, with a pearl inlaid pick guard. I would pluck around on it & pretend I was Lynn Anderson or Loretta Lynn for hours and hours. I took lessons for a couple of years and never learned anything. I was so sad to find out I had no talent for it, at all.

I later learned to play the flute & piccolo and marched in the band, played in the concert band as well as the orchestra at school.

My first major gift to Troy after we got together was an Epiphone guitar, one that he still has & still plays. Our son plays it more than Troy does these days, but it's hanging where I see it daily. Erin has a couple of his own, and is getting better every day, too. I love when they play together, or even when one is sharing his tips & tricks with the other & I get to sit in on it & hear (and see) what's going on.

I know Erin craves an acoustic of his own, and have been looking at guitars for him for Yule. We'll see what the future brings, I know he'd be thrilled with anything we got for him. I had always tried to pass my love of music onto my children, and I'm happy that I managed to do it with at least one of them & will do whatever I can to foster that love & his talent into something amazing.

Planning for Summer

I got a Ball Blue Book from Paperback Swap in the mail yesterday, so hopefully, I'll stop being so nervous about canning & actually get into it this summer. I'd love to get a container garden put in, as well, along with my Topsy Turvy planters, because the soil in my backyard is terrible & nothing will grow, plus it gets so hot out there, too. It's on the west side of the house & the afternoon sunshine is just too much for it.

With all of this in mind, I've been thinking of getting a composter, that way we can make our own mulch for the gardens for next year. I'm very excited about becoming more self-sufficient in our little house and making sure we have a little stockpile of foods & necessities built up for when the hard times come (and they will come, I can feel it). I'm not talking about getting all hoarder crazy about it, I just want to feel comfortable that we can eat for a little while, you know?

I've gotten very good about making our laundry detergent and shower gel, plus I know how to make dishwasher detergent, too, I just haven't been lately, so I could easily make a stockpile of those things, too. I realize that if things get really bad, we won't have power, but I've done laundry by hand many times & can also make regular dishwashing soap and have that ready to go, just in case. Having those skills makes me feel a little more secure.

Still Lazy

I still haven't managed to get anything done, other than picking up one of the offspring & making sure they both got off to their meeting. I've had breakfast & some coffee, then some iced coffee. I'm sitting around about as dressed as I'm getting today. Sweat pants, tee, Chucks.. looking at a lady walking her dog in the snow, wearing capri pants & one of those scrub tops, but no jacket of any kind. It snowed last night, it's pretty cold out there; what was she even thinking? And, it just started snowing again, she seems to be hurrying the dog along now. Maybe she thought she had enough time to just run out & walk it really fast and it had other plans?

I'm so ready for Spring, this snow stuff is so last month. Seriously.

Busy Times

My life never seems to slow down much anymore. That could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. On one hand, I'm rarely bored, because there's always something going on, but on the other, there are so many outside things going on that I rarely get a chance to do the things here at home that I want to.

Between running the offspring to meetings & appointments, planning for my brother's wedding, trying to spend time with other family members, and hanging out with friends at their homes and such, there seems to be very little time to take care of my own business. My house needs cleaning, we've been trying to find time to change the sheets for two days, I have to get the bedroom vacuumed & things put away so we can have Ostara rites in there on Thursday. We'll see if I find the time to do even half of that in the coming days.

Today, I have to get the kitchen cleaned, the sheets changed & dinner cooked for our friends tonight. Then, someone has to go pick up Dawn, Morgan & Dani, since she's out of gas. I really hope to get everything done, for once. My allergies are giving me hell today & I have almost no energy, but I'll see if Troy & Erin will give me a hand later on.

Lazy

I didn't even drag my butt out of bed until after 11 this morning, at least not for good, anyway. I woke up earlier, but my allergies were so bad that I could barely keep my eyes open, they were stinging so badly. I took a dose of benedryl & read awhile, then fell back to sleep. I got up, started dinner in the crock pot & have been somewhat struggling ever since. I do have things that need to get done today, it's not a day where I can afford to sit here reading blogs and doing nothing else. I have to shower, go to the store, straighten out the house, put laundry away and probably some other things, but here I sit, doing nothing.

Argh!!! I need to get myself up out of this chair & started doing what needs to be done, dammit!

Hmphf.

I started the photo a day challenge for March & promptly fell behind. I'm so amazing. Maybe I'll catch up, but I probably won't. But hey, I may have averted a break up for my brother & his fiance this morning, hopefully that was the right thing to do, I never know. I gave our old RV to someone who will actually fix it, and my parents are finally getting an actual building for their church instead of having to buy one of those steel buildings and put it on their land or hold their meetings in the high school auditorium.

Our ceiling is now insulated & covered again, we're just waiting for it to be taped & mudded now, so that hopefully, we (or the handyman) can get it painted & we can get our bedroom put back together again. That will be nice, maybe I'll find some motivation to get my laundry folded and put away at that point. I doubt it, but you never know!

Our son gets his 60 days clean & sober tonight & my best friend's youngest daughter got out of rehab this week, so things are looking up a bit, let's just hope things stay good for them both.