A Few Good Things

Here is a montage of a few good things I have done recently, and many that I did today. Enjoy!



Had some Little G and Aunt Beezy time.



This is my favorite corner in the house. It just looks so comfortable and lived-in.



I let Will build the website for my event.



I took the table runner from the top of my chest...




And put it on the table. I can't decide if I like it or not.



I washed the dishes. Thank you!



I let the panther sniff the (NOTICE: dead) flowers and then scolded her for being on the counter, which is a big NO-NO.



I checked on Will.



I put the yummy cookies he made on a pretty plate.



I made lunch. And, yes, those are my pajamas, and I had already showered.



Mmmmm. You can never have too much arugula.



Checked on Will again.



Did not make up the bed or hang up my dress after the grocery run!



Finally watered the dehydrated Basil planter and seeds that we got from the $1 racks at Target. I hope it grows! It looks so forlorn right now.



And, gave the panther a kiss.


Now, I'm snuggling on the couch with my baby.


What a great day!

Feeling Better

So, I was feeling pretty crappy today. My sinuses, just below my eyes, were experiencing tremors from the inevitable earthquake that was about to crack my skull in two. I came home early after a satisfying day of accomplishment, brewed a strong cup of English Breakfast tea and bathed my sinuses in the steam. I laid on the couch, book in hand, with my nalgene, a canister of raw almonds and a bowl of sliced cantaloupe. I ate the almonds until my tongue itched and downed the cantaloupe until my sinus headache was replaced with brain freeze. I read my book and snuggled under my soft blanket as the panther snoozed next to me on her pink blanket.

We were waiting for Will.

He came home, eventually. Upon entering the door, he immediately brought me a glass of Cranberry Grape juice and two Sudaphed. He washed the dishes. Cuddled me a bit. Petted the panther. And, then he boiled my soup, brought it to me on a tray with exactly 10 multi-grain Club crackers. I picked out all of the chunks of dried-out, processed chicken and dug in, soaking my crackers until the perfect mush.

Life is good, and I'm feeling better, now.

I think I am

So, I think that I am overwhelmed. You would think that it would be simple to diagnose, but I'm not so sure. I have a feeling that I'm not the usual "case."

Let me explain. I thrive on being busy. I love being on the go with places to be and people to see. I don't like being inactive, but lately, I am the epitome of inactivity.

I have a million different things that I could, nope, should! be doing right now. Things that really need to be done right now, and even some that should have been done yesterday. I should be freaking out, but am I?

Nope.

I am calm, cool and collected, sitting here comfortably on my couch and blogging my life away. But, its like I can feel, rather vaguely, but its there, this feeling of raw panic far beneath my cool exterior. I don't think I am suppressing anything, but how am I not breaking out from stress and fretting over there being too few hours in the day?

Have I cracked?

Dear God, I hope not.

But, its almost like I am negatively responding to this situation. My behavior is inside out. Am I reverting?

I have no idea.

All I do know is that someone needs to light a fire under me and quick! I'm practically moving backwards here!

I think though that I can prescribe myself a few antidotes for this poison of inactivity. Self-prescription must be good for something.

1. I need a schedule. Duh. No wonder college was so easy. With only a few clicks of a mouse, my days were numbered and planned. All the leftover time was easily divided between work and play, maybe not equally but very easily.

2. I need an office. I need to have a reason to get out of bed everyday at 7am and not sit on the couch for 2 hours watching the Today Show, working and sending millions of emails during the commercial breaks or the segments I don't like.

3. I need 3 fewer jobs. Right now, I'm juggling 4 and am about to add a fifth. My fault, I know, but money is tight and beggars can't be choosers, literally. I think the Starbucks at 5 Points is about to become my office. It has gotten to that point.

Well, I guess the one thing to be happy about is that I seem to have left my stressed-out freak-outs in Charleston, where they belong. So long, college.

Is THIS really what the Real World is all about? Give me a 9-5 office any day, please!

Now, all that's left to do is send emails to all of the vendors, guests and committee members for Columbia's Longest Days, fill out the PIF for 1601 Main Street, babysit the Big Apple tonight from 5:30 to 11, wash dishes, scan all of the newspaper adds and compile them digitally, edit the summary for the PIF, begin research on 1631 Main Street, build a website for Columbia's Longest Days, change the sheets, add pictures to the Lourie's brief, begin on the other briefs, etc.......

Being Married

I have learned one thing in these few months of marriage and that is


there are NO BOUNDARIES.


And, I wouldn't have it any other way.


Because, if you could see what I can see right now, you would know exactly what I mean.

Oh No!

So, I totally screwed up and missed yesterday's blog. This is to make up for it: My thoughts from yesterday.




I baked cookies last night for the entire fam, including Will, TuTu, Mar, Lar and me. Baby G only has two teeth and he was in bed, so he missed out. So did Elle and Phe, the doggies, who were banished to their beds, as usual when the humans of the house are eating.




But the cookies, well, they weren't that great.




Because, I hate baking.




Baking is not fun. There are rules, lots and lots of rules, and if you don't follow them, you get in trouble. Or, you just end up wasting a lot of time and energy making something that people will take a bite of and either spit out or secretly throw away, while they attempt to chew the unpalatable bite with the grimmest of smiles.




I know, baking is a science, but I hate science, so why in the world would I like baking??




There is no creativity in baking. You cannot make it your own.




And, I know that someone will defend "the art of baking" by describing the icing and decorating processes that follow, and I say "hooray!" I love icing cakes, cookies, cupcakes, etc., but its all the stuff, "baking," that comes before that really sucks.




Is buying store-made cakes, cupcakes, cookies, etc. sans the icing and decorations and icing and decorating them yourself a bad thing? I hope not!




And, that's my tirade for the day. Stay tuned for today's real post!

Plant Suicide

I find it funny and somewhat ironic that my favorite color is green, because I am a plant killer, a destroyer of all things green (guac included!). This is not something that I am at all proud of, but it is a truth that I must admit not only to myself but to anyone who might wish to present me with a precious bit of nature. Just know that I am very grateful for the gift and a great admirer of the beauty of plants, but it will die, eventually and probably very soon after you give it to me.

When it comes to plants, my thumbs are nonexistent.

Its heartbreaking really that Will and I are unable to enjoy the simple pleasures of nature inside our cottage [NOTE: bugs, you do not count! We do not want your nature!]. Not only am I lethal to plants, but our panther, Lottie, likes to eat them. She shreds their leaves and digs up their roots. She's just as bad as me. We reject nature in the Jackson household, and it breaks my heart!

I have always loved plants and have always been surrounded by them. My grandmother was Mother Earth to me. Her house overflowed with African violets, Christmas cacti and vines with flowers and some without that encased her porches. She could grow anything, anywhere and at any time. She passed on her neon green thumbs to my mother, who has an entire green room (actual color of the walls) filled to the brim with potted plants, hanging plants and expansive views of her lush gardens that surround her very green lawn.

This is just one of my mother's gardens.

Sadly, this affinity for growing things, well, really just the ability to keep plants alive, was not passed on to me.

I remember once that my grandmother gave me two of her purple African violets to have as my very own. I brought them home proudly and put them in the place of honor on my bedside table. Those darn flowers lost their blooms within days, never to bloom again!

Interestingly enough, it has always been a secret dream of mine to own a little cottage right outside of a city somewhere with lush and overgrown gardens--not weedy gardens, but full and flowering gardens. I don't want a lawn. I have always envisioned my brood of wild children that I will someday have playing hide and seek amongst the stalks of glads, behind a line of sunflowers or even in the middle of a purple butterfly bush. There will be fairies and gnomes and everything magical about nature there in that garden to play with them and ignite their imaginations. If they need space to run, well, there will be a patch of green somewhere in there, but never a lawn. Lawns are so boring, so suburban. Lawns are wasted space if you ask me.

Some place like this.


Now, how is someone who kills plants and is without thumbs going to accomplish such a magical garden?





I am going to hire a gardner, and a damn good one at that.

Put Down the Scrubber

There are two things that I really don't like to do:




I don't like washing dishes.




I don't like making the bed. Well, its not that I don't like it, it just doesn't bother me if it doesn't get done.




But, every morning, I do them, because they are important to Will and he is important to me.



Sometimes, after a long day of being apart, I just want to eat a good dinner and cuddle up to him on the couch. Nothing is better than a full-bellied snuggle. But, Will is usually manning his post as Head Dishwasher with suds up to his elbows. During these times, I sit on the couch and pout. I send him the sad face over the bar until he looks at me exasperated and says, "What, babe?"

"Come and sit with me," I almost yell with big dramatic wavings of my arms that are supposed to help. "The dishes can wait. I can't." "There's just a few more," he says.

Or, other times, I am concocting some incredible masterpeice of a dinner and he is standing there, hovering behind me in our too small galley kitchen. Of course, he has filled the right side of the sink with the habitual Dawny mixture of soap and scalding water. He's waiting to pounce on any utensil I happen to lay on the cutting board. I stir a pot of rice and put down the spoon to check on the squash. I tend to the squash and reach for the rice spoon. Its gone! "Where in the world did I put it?" I ask myself. I look on the spoon rest. Not there. Maybe its beside the cutting board. Nothing. I hear Will humming and know that he's up to something. And, there he is, round scrubber brush in hand, sudsing up my rice spoon. "Babe!" I yell. "I wasn't done with that!" "Well, sorry!" he says, "I'm just trying to clean up a bit." "But, dinner isn't even ready yet!" I say. "Stop it!" I yell. "Don't wash another thing until you've asked and I've approved it!" He rolls his eyes.

"You're going to wash your life away," I say. "And, nothing good ever came of that!"

And nothing ever will, except for maybe an empty sink and clean dishes. But, what are the important things in life here??