Spring is bipolar.

I took these just as it started to snow..the last 2 are from last week. Ahh...remember last week?

Spaceships and Laser Beams !!

Just a link to this awesome Etsy store! I ordered Beebs' birthday stuff/invites from here and Stephanie is wonderful! She helped me figure out how I'm going to print these and the turnaround time was super fast! Super great birthday invites/decorations/banners/etc. Monsters and snakes and vintage cars and my pick, the Bayou Theme! Beebs asked for a party with a (live) alligator and frogs. This is perfect!! I love the colors. I would love to have a steamy evening party with lanterns in the trees but since she's 2 uh..I guess early afternoon day party will be a go!
I'll let you know how the printing goes! I've never done anything like it so we'll see!

Oh hey, good morning. I had to get up and purge my brain a little. One minute I was putting a very sleepy Beebs to bed while it was still a little bit daylight outside. She wondered why she was going to bed when it wasn't even nighttime. The next minute I wake up, pretzeled in her bed next to her. I stumbled into our bed and promptly crashed out again. Roommate and I both woke up a bit confused about when we went to bed and what time is it anyway? 12:54. He looked at the clock and we both nestled down to sleep again only now it's 2:53 and I'm still awake. I tried thinking about happy things to fall back asleep to. Sometimes happy things are fields and flowers and gardens and sometimes they're sexy. Either way, none of that worked and then I slipped into that place where I'm thinking about my work day tomorrow and the shots I'll give and the vaccine questions I have and then I remember I wanted to read an article @thehils posted. Damn you, Twitter. I'm going to one day be composing real paper/ink letters with "@mydearuncle." So anyway, down the rabbit hole I went and before long I had picked up my phone and googled something I've been feeling the past couple days and in a matter of seconds I'm reading a message board where at least 50 people have written posts about when they felt that exact emotion I'd googled. Have you ever done that? It's both comforting and strange. Like maybe sometimes we instead need to sit alone with that emotion. It wasn't exactly commiserating but kind of? It was more relational but less so since most of those posts were from 2006 so I couldn't actively chime in but..still. We're not alone. but sometimes we need to be.

Now I'm downstairs on the couch. I opened the front door to let in that breeze from the south. It's pushing around the windchimes on the front porch. There are some rusty bells and wooden "chimes" that sound super comforting right now. I bought the wooden ones shortly after Roommate and I moved into our first little house together, a little bungalow we rented in North Kansas City. It was a sweet little place. We had just our driveway and small strips of grass on either side separating us from our neighbors and sometimes I'd be sitting at my desk in the corner of our living room next to a window and I could see/hear/smell our neighbors in their kitchen cooking. Their dog would peek out of that window while they shuffled about and it would all make me smile.

Spring is lovely and the lift it has given my spirits is palpable. You know, quitting my job at the hospital has also helped that. heh. I seriously don't think I can ever work 12 hour days again.  I'm still terrified of paying for COBRA and I'm not EVEN going to let my mind go there or I may seriously never rest again before work later this morning.

Here's something soothing. I was reading Aura joon while still upstairs in bed and found this quote in her most recent post. I love it! 

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." -Roald Dahl

That reminds me, we have a Roald Dahl book upstairs I bought for Beebs while she was even smaller. It's Matilda and I'm dying to read it to her. Right now I can only get a few lines in and she's somewhat bored. The first lines of the book make me laugh every time. "It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think he or she is wonderful."

I'm glad I got up and came down to put some blah blah here. It helps me not slosh it all around while I'm trying to close my eyes. I think now I can relish the sound of these windchimes and rest a little before work this morning.

Vits

good morning/good night.

Oh hi. I'm still up so it looks like I'm posting on 2 different days but it's the same day for me. See?
I have been spending more of my time working to reconnect with old friends or even some new. Really just a couple/few'ish total. It feels so good just to exchange like, real emails. I know that sounds lame as opposed to maybe, lovely paper and pen or in person meetings but one of my dear friends lives in China right now. She'll be returning to the states in June for awhile and I feel like we've both just been nurturing our relationship. We were childhood/high school friends (I guess that is also childhood, eh?)

I saw a college friend's dad on TV the other night, on the local news, talking about Amtrak. I emailed him after finding his blog through google and am hoping maybe I can reconnect with my friend, his daughter, just a little.

There's this show on the create channel (hehe) where this lady "teaches" people to cook and it's so awkward. It makes me feel uncomfortable to watch.

Beebs asked for a live alligator at her birthday party and also told me she'd like frogs. My friend found the cutest invites/decorations to print out myself or at like, Kinkos or something. I'm so excited! I'll show them to you later but they include frogs and alligators!

I'm off today and I'm glad because it's snowing. I will be just fine if we don't leave the house all day. We have a few library books that were due but I renewed them so there'd be no pressure to go anywhere. ha. Lame?!

Spring's going to be coming. I'm excited. How are you? Really.

Shawnee St. Patrick's Day Parade.

Our old house is located directly on this parade route. This year we had to drive down and park and walk but still fun. Here are some of my favorite photos. There's something about flag photos that is just too cliche for me but I enjoyed watching the firefighters lift these. The DeLorean photo cracks me up. That Locks & Pulls/Governor Stumpy's truck pulled up and stalled. The cute older guy driver looked mortified and said "Dead Battery!" He started waving the rest of the parade around him and then the firefighters pushed him down the street. ha. It made me smile. Oh! And that pale blue Jeepster? Adorable. Loved it. We came home and ate corned beef & cabbage and chocolate pie I made. I'm sad they're calling for snow tonight.

Facilitator of Rest.

Well, how have you been? I have officially started my new job and am in week 2 of it. So far, so good. I am crazy shot lady at the dr's office, a peds office, so I give 8 million shots a day. It's tough hurting little kids. The nurse training me said to think of it as protecting them against disease. It definitely makes me want to know even more about vaccinations to know just exactly what I'm doing.

I'm posting various places about my idea of being a facilitator of rest. I just feel like we all get so worn out and it's hard to let someone help us. I mean, whatever that rest might be. BFF and her new babies, exhausted, so drained, she cannot bear to just shower and sleep and let go while someone else helps. I think that's the case for many of us. It's hard to just let someone else bear the load a little at times or we don't have anyone else to help bear the load. With some of my own load gone, I wish I could hold a bit of yours sometimes.

I got super distracted writing this so..done for now.