How is he talking to me and he looks like himself and his hands move like himself and I’ve sat in this chair across from him a million times while he sat in that chair across from me a million times? Now all his words in their order make no sense like cut up, strung up and mismatched pieces of fabric. I’m trying to smile on the outside and I’m praying he can’t tell that I’m screaming and crying on the inside.
I’m in awe, and it’s not in the fireworks way, or being at Disney way, or a nurse handing one of my babies in my arms for the first time sort of way. That’s all awe filled with joy.
Tonight he couldn’t tell me very importantly what he very importantly wanted to tell me. That’s awe filled with sad.
Falling asleep, broken heart. Scrunch tears and think of years ago, walking on a beach where he pulled me out of the water, laughed loud, called me “twinkle toes”, skipped a rock and bent down to hold my hand.
I did not blog yesterday, so now I owe myself two today.
Round one: Yesterday got away from me…and then, we got a big delivery. After 21 years of marriage, we finally bought a new mattress. The one we were sleeping on was a hand-me-down from my parents and I think by the time we got it, it was already 12 years old. Current mattress situation: basically feels like sleeping on an Anglophilian-inspired straw, feather and horse hair stuffed abomination.
We bought a Stearns & Foster, just like my parent’s five-star hotel-like guest bed. While I was recently sick in our hay bed, my husband went to a mattress store, laid on a few, flopped around, called me for final approval, took the leap and paid a stupid amount of money. We had to wait over a month and we were panting for this thing to come. Finally we got word that it was on it’s way and I needed to deal with the bedding situation.
I have a problem with big box stores like Target, Costco, freaking Walmart. If I can’t see windows, I get tweaked. I couldn’t trust getting anything online, because I needed to feel everything. So I hyperventilated through Nordstrom Rack, sweated my way through Target and survived a full-on panic attack in the bedding department at Bed, Bath and Beyond. While I was doing this, number three called me to tell me that she had to leave Great America and go to the ER because her friend got sick (she is totally fine now, Thank God) and she needed a ride home. Full on breakdown in the sheet aisle. I did some lamaze breathing, called number one to go get her. He said, “Mom: Chill. I got her.”
Because of his helpfulness, I bought him new dorm bed sheets and upgraded the thread count. Mad props. I finally settled on 400 count for us and a snuggly UGGS comforter set, all in CREAM. Bold.
So yes, victory. Last night was amazing. It’s like sleeping on a cloud. The mattress is glorious and the bedding is so freaking cozy. The only negative is that one side of the comforter is literally the fuzzy stuff that’s in the inside of an UGG’s boot. Little sweaty. Will be perfect for snuggles in fall and winter. For now I’ll just keep cranking the fan on us.
I crawled in it at 6pm last night and I am still in it at 9:15am. I eventually have to get out of it to go see my dad, but for right now…
Loved to see my husband donating his time to bring music to such a fantastic and meaningful event in our lovely town of Wauconda, Illinois. Proud that my number one, who is working hard to get his five year Master’s in Criminal Justice loved the event and loved talking to a bunch working officers. Love that I have awesome friends who are also superheroes.
I loved that we all saw our police department and other community servants as real life proud, hard-working residents walking around our Main Street with their families, showing everyone that they are human, kind and just like every one of us. (But also, super brave.) Loved that mom my could be there to see how lucky we are to live in a blissful place.
Love that my family loves our community. That our oldest son is helping to build a house on Bang’s Lake while he is home from college, my second son works his tail off at Bulldog’s, the best best burger joint around, and my daughter loves to shop local, dreams of someday working at Lindy’s and is only mildly embarrassed about her performing parents…
Loved to see another day that our community rallies together to make 60084 a special place to live. We love this town.
In January, I got a new day job, so I went a little crazy and bought a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. It’s a 2010 and kind of beat up, but it’s been my dream car ever since I can remember and I just went for it. It’s a lot of Jeep for a “little” girl, but I was sure I could handle it. We named him Hank the Tank. I know that you are supposed to refer to your car as a girl but I think that’s sexist. Mine is a guy and he is a beast. My husband and the kids even got me the Cubbie tire cover. Bucket list item,√.
Unfortunately, I obtained him in January, the night before my husband was diagnosed with Covid and we were in quarantine, so I didn’t drive it for the first three weeks. Hank and I had a rocky start, also because the windows didn’t work and I have yet to fix a broken blinker, but still we seemed to get along ok. I couldn’t wait for summer and to take the hard top off…whip around Lake County feeling the breeze in my hair….
Did you know there is a “Jeep wave”? I didn’t know. I had some wave at me when I first started driving and I just chalked it up a bunch of really friendly people in my town. Then my good friend, who is a Jeep owner, asked me, “So you know about the Jeep wave…”
Ooooohhhhhhhhh!
OK. Aha….got it.
It’s a thing.
I was pretty excited about it. I felt like I was in a cool, new club. The next 3-4 times I drove, I did not see one Jeep. But I was on the lookout and I was going to be ready.
At last it was time. I saw one coming my way…My hands got a little sweaty and my stomach dropped.
And then it happened…They did it! They have me the wave!
They were like:
The I was like:
NERD ALERT.
I’ve chillaxed now and I think I’ve got it down. I also got “ducked”. There is something cute with squeaky ducks and I bought a whole bag of them from Target but I need to Google to figure out what to do with them. Again, nerd alert.
Truth be told, my dirty little vehicle secret….I’m so lucky and I am so grateful…I’ve been wanting a Jeep for so long, but now that I have it…well, meh.
it’s hard to get in and out of it. I almost have to take a running leap and dive in. It’s not very Rheumatoid Arthritis-friendly. I totally need one of those shelf things. Also, another problem with being so short; I have to do circus-like trapeze artist calisthenics to climb up the Jeep to put the soft top down myself. Forget about putting it back on when I’m alone. I actually have to get number one and/or my husband to help me. We are always battling with Car Tetris in the driveway, so it’s not even possible to just leave it off and park in the garage. It’s a work in progress. Someday soon I hope to make some real actual progress.
I can definitely see me pawning it off to one of the kids in a year or two. If I just had a car with a little button I could push and the top would go up and down. Up…and down….If only…
I need to put one of my new iTags on my actual purpose, cause I’m having trouble finding it.
I’m not even a week in with my 365 blogapalooza commitment and I’m already dreading writing about my One Big Thing today. It’s depressing.
I’m flailing. I’m in a funk. I’m blue. I’m lying here trying to find my damn solace. I’m feeling it’s somewhere along the lines of pulling up my big girl pants, getting over my bad self, making a list of things I need to get done and just freaking doing them.
But from the minute I woke up this morning, I’m finding it really easy to be sad. Sad about being sick, sad about my dad, sad about number one going back to college, sad about the sinking ship that is my music career, sad about the Rizzo, sad about not having a job.
Maybe I should just give myself a day to BE. I’ve been doing such a bang-up job for the last seven months wearing myself thin, not taking care of myself and treating myself badly, that it’s become a hard habit to break.
Welp, there you go. This is why I love writing. I just spoon fed myself my answer and found my literal purpose for the day. I’m going to give myself a hug, lay on my hammock, go out to lunch with my parents, enjoy my family. I can continue to wallow tomorrow. Today’s mission: Sunday funday.
HEATHERLAND 