Dear Blogosphere,
I just screamed at my older son for accusing me of serving him fish for breakfast. Of course I would not serve him fish! Jeez! But I did serve him chicken, and if you know my kid, you know that is the breakfast of choice! I know, really? He doesn't eat normal breakfast foods, except for the occasional bagel, which I totally spaced out and didn't buy any while at Trader Joe's yesterday. Nope. No bagels. Instead, I was being self-centered and bought myself a container of unsweetened coconut milk and raw blue agave nectar. I know.
REALLY?
What is wrong with me, you ask? Let me tell you. Have a seat, this could take a while.
I'm trying to eat healthier, in order to feel better because I have a condition that causes me to feel fatigued and completely bitchy. This is not perpetual PMS, which some males in my family would like to believe. No. This is called redundant colon. I have a large, sloppy colon. And by large I mean the doctor drew a fanciful diagram of it on paper and it looked like instructions on how to make a Celtic knot. Except my colon is clearly not as pretty. And it's not well behaved, either. When normal people eat, their brain sends a signal to their colon that it's time to visit the bathroom. My brain is clearly too busy sending signals to my fingers that allow me to "knit two together through back loop with working yarn in front---
oh nevermind."
My body just doesn't send or receive signals that help keep things moving. Instead, I can only imagine my colon is like a squirrel storing up for winter. "I'm just going to hang onto these last six meals you've eaten because you might find it difficult to find food later or something. Just sayin'." --Colon
It sucks, to be quite honest, and I don't want to live on medication, but I may have to go that route. Aging and stress only exacerbate the problem. I just had another birthday, and while at least one of my birthday cards stated my age at 29, you can't believe everything you read. And stress? I don't have much stress, but I "think" I do. I let things get to me. This is a "chicken or the egg" scenario. Does the body make me stressed? Does stress make the body not work well? It all goes round and round. And apparently cannot find the exit.
Here is today's stress. My younger son is not feeling well enough to go to school. Personally I think he could go, but that's because I was supposed to volunteer at school an extra hour and fifteen minutes longer than my usual hour and fifteen, and now I can't. He is not feverish, but he's complaining of a sore throat and he has a gross cough. Let the record show he will
not be playing DS, Wii or computer games today. He may watch tv. That's it.
Another stressful situation is being faced with decorating for Christmas and not feeling like it at all. Against my angst, I began last evening by clearing out all mixed up toys in our front room, which we lovingly refer to as the "Wii room," and trying to move a train table by myself. That didn't go well. It went, but not gracefully.
The older boy and I hauled up sections of our 9 foot artificial tree which I hate, and began putting it together. Fluffing out all those branches takes time, and when you don't like the tree, you just end up resenting each and every bough. I still can't seem to get the tree straight.
I began opening boxes of multi-colored lights from years past, which I also dislike. I like
all white. The kids don't.
They win. I began at the top of the tree, and worked my way down, and then I did the dumbest thing ever. I said to myself, "This isn't going too badly at all!"
The next box of lights I opened was apparently shoved into the box last January and only half the string works now. I only figured that out after spending fifteen precious minutes untangling them. Darn. Then I came across a set that didn't work at all. I tried wiggling lights. I tried changing fuses.
Nothing. Double Darn.
So now I do not have enough lights to finish the job. And with a kid home sick today, I won't be going to Home Depot anytime soon to buy more. And this brings me to part two of Christmas decorating. My neighbors are all decked out with lovely scene-stealing displays in twinkling whites, reds and greens, and all I have are box upon box of more multi-colored LED icicle lights to hang on my house. Did I mention how I hate the multi-colored ones? Yeah, they are ugly--all the way. And to make matters worse, last year, the lights kept going out (all of them) by themselves, and not go back on. I attributed this to a problem with the exterior outlet. I followed the manufacturer's instructions on not plugging too many sets in, but still had this problem. So several times this past winter, I would trudge out into the deep snow on the side of my house and unplug and the plug them back in. They worked for a while, then went out.
This summer, we had an electrician over for an unrelated issue and I mentioned to him the Christmas light problem. He tested the outlet and declared it fit. He said the problem must be in the lights. If he would've said "operator error," I would've punched him in the gut.
So if you were me, would you want to get on a step ladder and install all those crazy-ugly lights just so you could trudge through the snow everyday and night to light them up? No. Me neither. It's like thirty degrees today with gusty winds and me and my colon do not want to go up on any damn step ladder. I think if my family wants exterior lights they are going to have to do it themselves. I don't mean to sound all Scroogey, but really people. Step up.
Here are some pictures unrelated to multi-colored lights or colons. Except for the last one.
 |
| Jack helps flute the pie crust for a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie at Grandma's house. | |
|
 |
| My boys in the tree at their Grandma's house in Detroit. It was unusually warm and sunny this past Thanksgiving! |
|