Tickens

I am on vacation. Why write? you ask.

Well, my kids are napping hard in my bedroom. My husband is off playing in the Jeep 4x4 rental, and I'm surfing the net on our lanai.

I'm using a fancy word like lanai because I'm in Hawaii, or How-ah-yah, as my Grandpa Gene used to call it.

Here are some observations from the trip so far:

1. Long flights with small children aren't as bad as the anticipation of long flights with small children. Either that or I had a stroke three hours into the second flight and can't remember the details. Let's just say, there's a lot of repetition involved. "Who wants to go to the bathroom with mommy?" So far we are the family from the farthest point east. We haven't met anyone from EST yet.

2. Kauai is called the Garden Island because it's so lush and green. And apparently because it rains every single day at the highest point on the island. However, I think it should be renamed The Chicken Island because wild chickens are everywhere. When I say everywhere, I mean they're on my lanai sometimes, too. And we aren't on the ground level.

3. Chickens, even the guys who crow at 5:00 a.m., are the coolest thing if you're three years old. Or two. So if you have a two-year-old, or a three-year-old, or a forty-year-old, you may want to consider Kauai as your next vacation destination. Griffin turned two the day we left home and the chickens (or tickens as he calls them) are so far his favorite part of the trip.

4. Kauai is also the Family Island. This is probably due to the fact that there is no nightlife to speak of, and the chickens will wake you up by 6:00 if you managed to sleep through the screaming at 5:00. Perfect schedule for children! We've noticed there are more families with babies and small kids here than anywhere else we've gone.

5. I'm an idiot for living in the midwest. I have this thought whenever I go anywhere lush and tropical.

6. My body is not nearly as deformed as I think it is. There are all sorts of bodies in bikinis on the beach and mine just blends in with theirs. So I donned my bikini today and tried to ignore the jiggles. Probably it could have blended more with a better tan, but eh.

7. I hate touring. I don't like to sightsee. I'd be happy staying in this resort or venturing two miles out every single day. My husband likes to sightsee and go exploring. We're like The Odd Couple.

8. I will probably be digging sand out of crevices for weeks to come. That's ok. It's been worth it.

- H

I haven't disappeared

It just may seem that way. My brain has gone blank. Seriously.

I have nothing to write about.

Well, there's always the random wiener stories around here, like how yesterday while I was standing in the driveway holding Griffin and talking to my next door neighbor, Cooper pulled his pants down and peed on my lavender plants. He was standing behind me, so I didn't see it but I'm my neighbor did. What I did see, when I turned around to check on him, was a half-naked boy struggling to pull his pants up over his bum.

And there's always the stories about how Cooper is obsessed with his butt. Purposely putting his hands back there now that he knows it freaks me out. What is he hoping to find? A winning lottery ticket?

I could write about our missing red glofish. Who was here yesterday morning and now is not here and is nowhere to be found in the tank. Did I mention the gigantic freaky snail? He's not glowing red, but I do suspect his involvement in the disappearance. The unfortunate thing is I will have to dismantle the tank this evening and clean it out, something I am not fond of doing. And this time, I know a carcass of a poor red glofish will be my booby prize.

I could write about how I burned the hell out of my arm on a super hot iron yesterday. How I was walking past the ironing board and instead of staying safe I managed to somehow rest my forearm on the tip of the iron at the hottest setting it can go on. I have immense sympathy for burn victims. It hurts like a bitch and will leave a nasty scar. Layers of flesh peeled away.

Or, I could write about how my work-life-balance has suddenly shifted in favor of work again, due to some good news from the FDA. There goes my lazy days without pressure. Welcome back to working for a living.

So, in lieu of writing about any of that, I have decided to write about nothing today. Sorry, friends. Tomorrow I'm sure I'll have something good.
- H

Now that I'm not post-partum I'd like to feel my feelings again, thanks

In my crazy desire to share more about myself than I probably should, I'm going to tell my postpartum story and the subsequent desire to get off all the crazy meds. It's a thriller, I tell ya.

I had two boys within twenty months. I mean, my boys are twenty months apart. I didn't think this was a big deal at all, especially considering I was 35 when I had my second baby and you know, the old cow wasn't gettin' any younger, right?

I don't know if the darkness of depression really settled in after my first son or not. I have a suspicion it did but I was too tired to notice. I had gone back to work six weeks after having him (first mistake) because I was in a new job (oh, wait, that was my first mistake, the maternity leave thing was my second mistake). My new manager was...what's the word?...oh, right, he was an ass.

Our mutual disrespect and dislike of each other didn't make for a healthy or happy working environment, but I had no other choice. My hubs is not supportive of supporting us, so worked I did (and still do although I now have a job I actually love!).

By the time my first son was a year old I was pregnant again.

At first it was fine. Then a few months later when all hell broke loose with my son's personality (you know, the point where your docile baby turns 16 or 18 months old and becomes a CRAZED TODDLER) I thought I must have been insane to sign up for this again so soon, and by then it was too late.

Let's see, then what happened? Oh yeah, I struggled through the pregnancy with a gigantic baby in my belly, a gigantic toddler on my lap, a job I hated with every fiber of my being, and a husband who hated me being pregnant.

By the time my second son was born, I was pretty much shot. Once again, I only had six weeks of maternity leave. This time, I voluntarily went back to work that quickly to run away from home. You see, three weeks after my son was born, my husband decided to gut our master bathroom against my will. I came home from Christmas shopping one day and it was a shell, down to the studs.

Renovation and remodeling is chaotic. I'm usually up for it, but not then. I had enough chaos in my brain and my body and my home and I was pissed about it.

Months passed, maybe four? I don't know. All I know is by April of last year I was an emotional and physical wreck. I was crying all of the time. I dreaded opening my work computer, let alone getting into the car to go do the job every day. I dreaded my phone ringing and hearing my boss's voice. I was losing weight very rapidly (what I wouldn't give for that now) and my milk supply was drying up. I would fall asleep at 10:00 at night, only to wake up at 1:00 and not be able to get back to sleep.

After Griffin was born, we had hired our kooky friend, cleaning lady and quasi-grandma Jean to be the boys' nanny. It wasn't working out, which is another story for another post.

I finally broke.

I called my doctor and begged to be put on medical leave so I could stop working long enough to pull myself together.

I was referred to a psychiatrist (what?! I'm not crazy I'm just depressed! oh, that's what they're for? oh, ok) who helped me a great deal. He finally convinced me in May of last year to start antidepressant therapy and by June I finally was on it. Believe me, I was resistant. I was non-compliant. I tried my best not to do it, but eventually I gave in.

And it helped. I have been taking Lexapro and Wellbutrin since then.

So, the thing is, the drugs help. They really do, or at least they really helped me. But the weird thing is, while I don't have those low low lows anymore, I kind of miss being able to feel sadness a little. Not a LOT, but a little.

I can't cry. I couldn't break down sobbing if I wanted to, and lately I've actually wanted to. Crying can be really cathartic, but I can't do it. I'm like Chandler in the old Friends episode who wanted to cry and tried everything to shed a tear but couldn't?

I'd really like to wean myself off the meds. I may still take the Wellbutrin because I don't have side effects on it like I do on Lexapro. Like weight gain. Remember my constant complaining about how hungry I am and how much I like to eat candy? I think it's the Lexapro. At least, I hope it's the Lexapro.

It's scary, making this decision. I never want to go back to the pain and darkness that was last spring for me. But I want to be able to feel my feelings again. I want to know what it's like to be able to cry over something sad and be elated over something happy. Antidepressants are a godsend for a lot of people (including myself), but they also just made everything Even Steven. I want a few highs and lows again. If the balance gets out of whack, and the lows overtake the highs, I'll start it up again.

I guess nobody ever said life was going to be easy. But it's interesting!

- H

Hit the spacebarplease

Everyone has their daily rituals, right? Things you just do every day, no matter what.

I have a couple rituals. I go to Bread Company every morning for a Pepsi and a toasted Asiago bagel with plain reduced fat cream cheese. When they don't toast it right my day is usually ruined. Well, maybe not ruined but there's some serious uphill work to be done.

And every day I put my ridiculously expensive real estate license to good use by running a Hot Sheet. Hot Sheet is a very clinical term that refers to an MLS search of anything hot. Just kidding, it's really a search that shows any changes on the market since the last time you ran it.

Wow, this explanation is way longer than I'd have liked it to be.

So as I was browsing through the New Listings (that's the heading), I came across a darling house with an adorable exterior. Cute exteriors are all it takes for me to read the description.

Here's how it started...

...From the moment you walk in your glass front door with sidelights you'll know that you're HOME!You'll find hardwood...

And I kept thinking "from the moment I walk in that door I'm going to think I'm homey?" And then all I could think was HOMEY DON'T PLAY THAT. And then I was rolling in laughter because seriously, it doesn't take much. A misplaced comma, some "unnecessary" quotation marks, a missing space after punctuation, and I'm a gone-er.

See, I still haven't figured out how to spell that word so I'm not even going to try. I made up my own word with a hyphen.

This post just proves that I need to get out more. I would do that, but then I'd be OUT and for an antisocial agoraphobic such as myself, out is not nearly as comfortable as in. Although, to be fair, I'm out every day among people so you can imagine my discomfort sometimes.

I'm not really agoraphobic. Or antisocial.

I'm just boring. There's a big difference.

- H

SPF is an art and a science

I was packing up our stuff last night for the return trip home, and I laughed at the bathroom counter. The bottles of sunscreen are like a little chemistry lab.

I have bad skin. I inherited this from my dad, who also has bad skin. I have the skin of a redhead without red hair. It's also prone to rosacea and acne, and when I get a pimple it scars. So yeah, it's great.

Thanks to all the damage I've done to my skin over the years {I was the manager of a tanning salon in college, for pete's sake} I do tan. But it's not evenly distributed. My arms tan more than my legs. My chest tans in about ten minutes and then moves straight to burn if I haven't put on sunscreen.

The last few years I've noticed my legs have stopped tanning. They are remaining startlingly white despite lots of sun exposure and very little sunscreen on them.

So I have SPF30 for my face. And my daily lotion from Skinceuticals has SPF30, too. Then I have SPF15 for my chest and shoulders. And SPF4 or 8 for my arms, depending on how dark they already are, and SPF 4 for my legs, or nothing. Only nothing if I'm not going to be out long.

The sun, she isn't my friend anymore. She causes spots and wrinkles and she ages me more than I'd like to admit.

Ahh, but she feels good. So I'm keeping her as a friend. She'll be one of those toxic friends you know you need to get rid of, but it would be so hard.

So it's back to the cold midwest with me. And back to the personal dramas I'd rather not admit that I have. And it's back to the stomach ache from anxiety.

Cripes.

Vacation should last forever.

I'm uptight and it's out of sight

I'm uptight. I get it. It's no surprise to me, but it seems to be a surprise to my husband. You'd think after eight years he'd kind of remember that I'm uptight?
Nah.

I have just decided being uptight is part of who I am. I could work on it, I guess.

I could work on not being irritated when people are drunk at inappropriate times., like 10:45 a.m. On a Tuesday. Or when people make inappropriate jokes. Like if a baby walks up to an old lady on the beach, that baby's dad shouldn't say "hey, you're his first Spring Break hook-up!"

If a two-year-old finds a crab on the same beach, and is scared of it, it's also not funny to say "yeah, I'd be scared of catching crabs on Spring Break, too."

I don't know, maybe I'm totally off-base but I'm ok with being uptight in these situations. I don't feel that social pressure to laugh at stupid jokes like that. I just don't. So I don't laugh, and then I get called a name or told to lighten up or whatever, but I'm ok with it.

But you know what? Lightening up would be anti-me. Because I'm uptight. So I'm ok with it. Call me whatever you like. It's just me and I think it's about time we all like ourselves for who we are.

By the by, a friend recently asked me what my mom thinks. I said "oh, I think she gets it. At least I hope she gets it." And you know what? I was right. She gets it. She's made her own comments this week, along the lines of "hey, dumbass, help out with your kids." Or "yeah, I heard that," when he asked for help after five minutes with both kids and I was muttering under my breath about it. So yeah, maybe I'm not the only uptight person around here.

Or maybe. Just maybe. There's another explanation?

The last seven days

I recently read an article making fun of blogs that just post their daily schedules and whatnot. Kind of like mine. So, hey. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em right?

This is what I've done in the last seven days. In no particular order.

Used a dangerous tool to pull up all of the old asbestos tiles in my basement laundry area. Shhh, don't tell the guvment.
Cut and laid carpet tiles in laundry area of basement.
Sat on an airplane next to a man who hogged my area with his legs spread and spit dip juice into a clear bottle the whole way.
Consoled a friend who was having drama with another woman who used to be her friend. Listened to another friend's wackadoo story about her married boyfriend's inlaws taking his family to Hawaii without him. Hello, soap opera, it's me, Heather.
Got pinkeye.
Treated pinkeye with antibiotic drops.
Missed an appointment with my therapist (crap).
Heard from an ex-cop. Gulp.
Heard from an attorney.
Flew home from Dallas.
Flew to Chicago. And home. On Southwest.
Stayed at the W hotel.
Met my friend Susan in Dallas for a drink to catch up (so nice).
Lamented the worsening condition of my elbow situation.
Freaked out about my son's loss of hearing.
Made an appointment for my son to have his hearing checked on Friday.
Picked up my mom at the airport (yay).
Let my two year old sleep with me.
Regretted the decision to let my two-year-old sleep with me when he hogged the bed and kicked off the covers all night.
Ordered coolio necklaces from Anthropologie.
Returned yucky necklaces to Anthropologie.
Turned off the furnace in preparation for spraypainting.
Spray painted the basement wetsink cabinet cream.
Worried about the house exploding when I turned the furnace back on. It didn't.
Bought a new suitcase after the handle broke on my other one. Which was also fairly new.
Went to TJMaxx and found tons of cute things from Juicy and Lucky that I didn't buy.
Painted the stairwell going upstairs.
Lamented the current state of the economy and wailed "oh my God, what are we all doing to do?!" and then relaxed about it because what the hell there's nothing I can do but keep on keeping on.
Etched and primed four doors upstairs - bathroom, two bedrooms, and two closets. Wait, that's five doors.
Wrote this post along with a bunch of others.
Inspected my navel too much.
Hugged and kissed my kids a lot. But not enough. It's never enough!

Making new friends takes a lot of time

Check me out, inspecting my navel. Remember when you were in college, and making friends was easy? You could spend hours hanging out with your friends in your room or the library or wherever. You could stay up until two in the morning talking talking talking.

You'd pour your heart out, tell all of your life stories, find similarities and common interests. If you partied, you'd go out together from Thursday through Saturday (at the very least) and stay up until the wee hours of the morning. You'd meet each other's boyfriends (or girlfriends, whatever) and you'd share each other's clothes.

Then we graduated from college and people went separate ways. Some went together to big cities, others moved where they could find a job, some went home to live with their parents until they figured out what they wanted to do with their life.

Most of us got our first "job" during this time. Still single, it was still easy to make friends at work. We could talk around cubicles or across the aisle, email each other notes to make fun of our boss's lame suits or bad haircut. Some of us got married young and it was exciting to plan a wedding and have all the showers and parties.

Well...I'm well past that stage in life. I'm on the uphill climb to forty {uphill in a numerical sense, not in a negative way at all} and I just don't have the free time I used to have to make friends. I'm busy, but not in a bad way. It's just that every hour of the day is usually dedicated to something else.

I have two kids. I have a husband. I have a job. I have a house that needs keeping. In a fringe sort of way I have employees, if you count my cleaning lady, the daycare girls, and my dry cleaner, just to name a few.

I don't have hours in a day to talk to my old friends or make new ones. I don't work in an office anymore where I can talk to my co-workers over desks. I work out of my house and out of my car. I'm alone on the job, but ironically, my job is to go talk to people in different offices all day long. To be friendly, to be cordial, to be polite. But we don't make friends. We don't hang out on the weekends.

I've made some great friends through work, but they live in different states. Such is the fate of a salesperson who covers a large geography. The next person is pretty far away from you.

I've often said to myself I'd like to have more close girlfriends in St. Louis, but I don't have the time to cultivate them. Friendships are like gardens, they need tending. They need time and they take effort. They're wonderful when you have them and they're elusive when you don't.

I'm currently working on a new friendship with a girl who has a lot in common with me. She's a lovely person, we just don't have a lot of time to get to know each other! Hopefully we'll be able to get together more than once a year. That'd be nice, eh? And isn't it funny that no matter how old you get, you still call other ladies "girls?"

I've been lucky in my life to have some wonderful friends. Some old, some new. Some internet, some real. Whatever that means. Everyone is real, right?

I'd never trade those free hours I had in college for what I have now, though. I'd not trade the time it takes to care for my children or the time I spend with them for the free hours to stay up late on the phone making new friends. Obsessing over the latest mishap in my lovelife. Ordering Domino's Pizza at 1:00 a.m.

I love my life now. I just wish I had more friends.

I like change. I just don't like change.

When my nephew Austin was three, I used to pick him up and take him on little outings. We'd go to a movie and stay 45 minutes, play some games at an arcade, eat at Steak-n-Shake and then I'd bring him home. We had some fun times together.

One time, we were having a deep discussion in the car about who he likes. He made a profound statement.

I like girls, I just don't like girls.

Oh, the truth in that statement! He's twelve now. He has no idea how true it will be. Except at the time he pronounced girls "gyeels." Very cute.

So then there's me. I love change. Mix it up, change things, move the furniture, paint a new wall color, change, change, change. Love it. I'd move to a new house every other year if I could. I moved ten times in ten years when I was on my own.

Except when change is put upon me, and I've become attached to whatever it is that's about to change. Then, eh, not so much.

I had this vacation planned in March for me and my kids. My husband was going to be away for two weeks for work and I was taking the boys to see my parents during that time. I was attached to this plan, looking forward to it, the whole nine yards.

So my husband just called and said his work plans have changed and he can come to Florida with us. Yay. I'm irritated. It's Change I Didn't Ask For. I only like Change I Ask For.

Have you ever read "Who Moved the Cheese?" Mice don't like it when people move their cheese. I think that's the moral to the story. Only me, I don't mind moving cheese. I just want to be the one to do the moving, that's all. I'll move my cheese around all day long, as long as I can control where it's moving.

Mmmm, cheese. Now I'm hungry.