Abnormal. A life of meaning.

Ever have those times when you just need it all to stop? Just make the world slow down so nothing else can happen. I'm going mad. Too much. Not enough sleep, far too much sorrow, forgot to eat, dogs running wild, surgery that can go too wrong for my comfort, dreams about little fingers, little toes, blood. Tears, fleas from nowhere, uncomfortable couch, hot hot hot room. Hands are shaking, that horribly behaved kid down the street just keeps screaming and screaming and screaming. My husband tells me to calm down...do I sound that bad? Stop telling me to calm down, I'm CALM. Stop, just stop, stop stop stop. I just need a little peace. Am I falling apart? Just in case there's a flicker of a cardiac beat. Leaving her when she needs me the most. Trailer. Junior. Turn the page. Let it go. I just need to B R E A T H E.

So, just for fun, here's a code that my best friend and I made up when we were in the seventh grade. Interestingly enough, our teachers, peers, and parents were never able to decipher this simple code when our important 'documents' were confiscated. Can you? It requires no key, you simply have to know how to read it. If you figure it out, feel free to leave a comment with the translation. Okay, here goes! uloby rtoaf tioon yalnertjianoisfkerd ski gonsiavlirdoyskas niethot daereocnclurs tsneord uloky tosarkiaf tra fli Hint: There's no punctuation so as not to give anything away. Good luck! :)

So, as many of my posts start, I couldn't sleep, so here I am. :) I was wrapping presents and such and decided to put on some Christmas music earlier this week, when I realized something. I'm in desperate need of Christmas CD's I actually like . Now, as you all know, I am in love with music of many different sorts, but I can't stand...well, choir music. It does nothin' for me. Ugh. Anyway, it seems that the only radio station with Christmas music is 101.3, and that they play the same songs by the same artists over and over. Unfortunately, much of it is choir-ish. I repeat, ugh. So as I was grocery shopping tonight in Wal Mart (yeah, I grocery shop there too. What can I say? We po' folks! Lol) I made a detour to the music section. All I was really looking for was a name I recognized. That wasn't country. I stumbled upon Josh Groban's Noel , and name recognition did its thing, and I bought the CD. Now, before this, I had never heard any of h...

A friend, upon seeing me, asked "How're you doing?" I auto-responsed, "Fine, how are you?" She just kind of looked at me for a second and then she said, "I feel kind of average, I don't want to be here, and I'm frustrated with things at home. And you're lying." I was taken aback for a second, and I said, "No, I'm not!" She just kind of laughed and said, "Okay. How are you doing?" I thought for a minute. I looked at her, and she waited patiently. Then, very quietly, I said simply, "Tired." She nodded, and I think she knew I wasn't talking about the lack of sleep. And I am. I'm tired. Tired of being sick, of feeling like crap. Tired of having no energy; tired of being overweight no matter what I do; tired of glucophage and how if I miss a couple of doses, I'm starting over with the sickness; tired of side effects like insane cravings and hot flashes; tired of the mood swings, headaches, and all th...

And maybe that makes me naive, but it's fact. I just don't get it. How does anyone, as a mother, decide that their child shouldn't live? I mean, at what point are you able to make that decision? How do you decide to give up hope on a child that may have birth defects? By saying that a child has a defect and should be "terminated" is no different than the systematic killing of baby girls in countries like India and China. These children aren't killed for any other reason except that they aren't worth enough. They have no "social value". They aren't worth feeding and raising. It's easier just to kill their own children. You know that feeling when something unexpectedly bad has just happened? Like, you hear a gunshot, or a child screaming? And it takes your breath away just a little, and makes your heart pound? That's how I feel when a girl follows "I'm pregnant" with "I don't know yet if I'm going to keep it....

My hubby and I are going to go look at phones at Verizon tomorrow, because we're looking at switching services so that when we move out to the boonies for a few months, we have phones. Plus, I want a Palm Treo, because I'm tired of lugging around the mp3, phone, and Palm Pilot. It'll make life so much easier. Especially since I am insanely dependant on the dumb Palm due to the nature of my job. And since said Palm is showing signs of impending death. Which will be bad. Very, very bad. ANYWAY. The point of this is that I go to church on Sunday mornings at Greenbrier Mall, and the Verizon place is like, right across the street. So, if for no other reason other than convenience and gas conservation, Andy is going to church with me! Hooray! :)

Will I do more harm than good? How will I know what to say? Will I make a fool of You as well? Again, I cannot sleep. Again, my mind races. Again, I seek answers. Why am I here? What difference can I make? What is the point? My strength is so terribly insufficient. Alone, I can do nothing but fail. I am a broken thing. I remember that age so well. So independent, so desperate for a cause, so passionate. So open . I look at her friends and I think, who do they look up to? Where are those who love her? What has made her so desperate? What has happened to make him so angry? Why does no one help them? How can I be what she needs? How can I show her how to be stronger than the world around her, to be passionate about the right things, like life, truth, love, hope, faith? How can I help her to stand for what is right? How is it that we are all she gets? How did our world get here? How did we get to a place where people like Hitler and Hussein come to power? How did we get to a place where ge...

The good news is, I'm off the crutches completely, and it doesn't hurt too badly unless I twist it. Or hit it. Yeah, hitting it is baaaad. So I'm in the shower today and I start thinking this has been like a bad Dr. Seuss episode... "One knee, two knee, bang knee, owie! Two crutch, one crutch, no crutch, yay! On brace, off brace, sad face, mad face!" Lol, okay. Enough. I have to go to work. I was thinking, though, that it's been a rough couple of weeks, sure, but the fact is that I'm re-injuring things I've injured before, and it's taking a small fraction of the time it should be to heal. For that, I'm thankful. Oh, and I didn't rip/tear any ligaments or tendons (I think). Yay!

I've recently been going through some 'uncomfortable' times. What I mean is that most aspects of my life are not cooperating with my plan. For instance, we want to sell our house in February, but we can't really pay the bills right now, much less afford a new water heater and about $2,000 worth of other work that has to be done first. Consistently, every time we think we're getting ahead, something comes up. Which leads to my health as of late. Now, if I didn't know better, I'd say I've had some bad luck lately. Thanksgiving day, I learned of yet another side effect of the Clomiphene treatments and my Polycystic Overian Syndrome (PCO, PCOD, or PCOS) 'affliction' (lol, maybe I'll just start referring to the PCOS as "my affliction"). That nifty side effect is that you are more prone to injuring a certain back muscle called a sacroiliac. Which I did. Please see previous posts as to the wonderful joy that experience was. As my back was...

Top Five Things that I can't seem to get right that I thought would be easier (But in no particular order): 1. But why is the rum gone? Getting drunk is a pretty easy one to avoid. Just STOP drinking. Or better yet, don't go to the bar. So why is that one so hard? Why is it always there in my mind that I need a drink? 2. Cuss like a sailor (and drink like a fish). Words that I try to avoid have simply embedded themselves in my vocabulary and are pretty grudging about leaving. If I was a radio, my sentences would often contain beeping noises. 3. Be a better wife. Show your husband that God makes your marriage better, not worse. This is the general idea behind what a friend advised me on concerning my husband, who is none too happy about my new "church thing". I don't feel like elaborating on why, but this is so much harder to do than it sounds. 4. Thinking it counts, too. It's not about looking the part, it's about living it. Haha, traffic...

There is much on my mind as of late, which puts me in a writing mood. My mind is constantly trying to wrap itself around some amazing new idea or concept, or change perspective after a very long time. I see things in a substantially different way, and I notice that with my change of perspective, my vision is changing, remaking itself. I have a sense of purpose, and a vision for things that are far outside my grasp, yet so important that I must try to make them a reality. My priorities are shifting, and it seems as if I am seeing, feeling, hearing, understanding so much that I must have missed over the past few years. I feel as I imagine a blind person must feel when they regain their sight. I am noticing things that people take for granted, I am taking small pleasures in the simple things that are mundane to so many. I feel joy. Not just smiley-giggly-silly happiness, but true, unmistakable, starts-in-your-soul-and-explodes-out-of-you kind of joy. But with that joy comes a kind of sad...

1. Zicam really does reduce the severity and length of your cold. If you can let the little pills melt without chewing them (which is really hard). And if you can do it without gagging. 2. Some people shouldn't have kids. Or dogs. Especially not kids and dogs. Especially not in public. 3. Some dogs will bite you just to be allowed to go play in traffic. 4. People will get mad when you step aside to let their dog run out the front doors to the busy street outside. *Disclaimer* Look, I love dogs and I jumped in front of the doors to keep his fuzzy tail in that store. But the fact of the matter is, when a sixty-pound beast growls and lunges for me, I'm MOVIN. I do NOT like your dog that much. If he wants to go frolicking in traffic that bad, FINE BY ME. Maybe if you had some control over your two beasts and you six year old, you wouldn't have that problem. WHY would you bring in two huge, aggressive dogs, one badly behaved child, and an infant into a busy stor...