Real conversation from my work the other day:

Me: Hey, you – software developer – come see if I coded this right.

Software developer: Okay … what language are you working in?

Me: I have no idea, and I really don’t care.  Just make sure I didn’t break anything.

Software developer: !!!!

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At the end of January, I lost any sense of what “level of effort” means and told my boss that, yes, of course, we can take on three unique development projects due in 6 weeks on top of all of our other workload.

I still maintain that he spiked my coffee with something before he asked me that, because otherwise I would have said not just no, but HELLS NO.

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We’re coming out on the other side now, finally.  It’s been a long few months and I’m ready to have a life outside of work again.  I’ve had a little time to sleep, and to think, and to review my 33 Things list that closed out last week.  I’ve had a little time to dream, and plan for the summer, and agree to be a bridesmaid this fall.  I’ve had a little time to look at races, both ones that I want to run and ones that I can volunteer to help at in the next few months.

I’m ready to resurface, to rejoin my community, and to check in with my friends.  Tell me what you’ve been up to the last few months.

 

31. Yourself

*Poof!*

Self-portraits.  Much harder than they look.  This one will probably disappear by tomorrow night.  But hey!  I have on eyeliner!

So my January intentions were to run the New Year’s Day race, the State Park Trail Run, purge 100 things, complete the 750 words Challenge, try out one new recipe, and finish the baby stocking design transfer that ‘s been hanging out 80% complete.  I skipped the New Year’s race because of the rain (surprise!) and I forgot about the design transfer, but I did get the other things completed.  I also participated in ICLW since I was already posting every day.  For February, my intentions are to start a 10K training plan, send out valentine’s day cards, finish the heart design I am stitching, read a book, and try a new recipe.  There’s a race in a week that I really want to do, but I am nowhere near trained enough to have a good time, so I don’t know if I’m going to run it or not.  I feel like it’s been a good start to the year and I want to keep up that momentum into next month.

One of my goals for the year is to earn a 100-day 750 words badge, so I am going to keep writing there, but I’m not going to try the photo-a-day challenge next month.  The prompts have been interesting, and they’ve given me a lot to think about, but trying to run multiple challenges at once is tough.  I think it’s a great way to get motivation if you want to post every day and (like me) don’t have any kind of regular writing format.  I’m proud of myself for completing the month, but it will be a relief to complete this tonight and be done for January.

For next month, I have a journaling exercise that I have had on the shelf for a few years, and I’m going to give it a try.  It’s a 40-day exercise with prompts each day, so that would get me through February at least.  I’m also going to try to write earlier in the day when I’m fresh – right now, I feel like I had more interesting things to say this morning, but now I can’t remember any of them.

 

30. Down (and Happy Blogoversary to Me!)

The rain came down, then the temperature dropped, and then the sun went down.  Which all combined to create a spectacular sunset.  I wish I had had a real camera with me; the one on my phone just really doesn’t have enough power to do justice to the light and the color that was there.  I don’t have a point-and-shoot any more – the flash on my purse camera died last fall, and I haven’t been happy with any of the potential candidates.  The one I had was a $100 camera five years ago, but the current version is closer to $200 and I’m not ready to spend that much on a replacement.

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When I logged into wordpress, I had a message wishing me Happy Anniversary.  I’ve been in this space for the last six years, which completely blows my mind.  I remember setting up this account, trying to pick out a tagline and a pseudonym.  If I remember correctly, wordpress at that time told you how many wordpress blogs you were joining.  At the time I started this space, it was something like 650K.  That was a lot, but no where near how many there must be now.

It goes without saying that the blogging community is much different than it was six years ago.  I think that all of the bloggers in the cohort I started out with have either moved on to parenting or living childfree.  I say “I think” because most of them have also stopped writing.  I never approached this space with a plan, just with the desire to get stuff out of my head.  And that’s why I’m still here.  The need to clear some mental space never really goes away.  Sometimes it’s a stronger desire, sometimes it’s weaker.  Sometimes I need more support, sometimes less.  Either way, this has become my home and I don’t see myself leaving any time soon.

Thanks for being here with me all these years, and I hope you stick around.

 

29. Grow

This is winter in Alabama: today, it was 70 degrees outside.  Tonight, we have a chance of tornadoes.  By Thursday, it’s supposed to be in the 40′s, and we have an outside chance of snow by Friday morning.  I was thinking about Project 333 the other day and realized that I don’t think I could do it – I have to have all my winter clothes out now, and all my summer and spring clothes out too.

I was browsing Pinterest this weekend (yes, I have been sucked into the black hole) looking at planters and herb gardens and row markers.  I was already planning on planting a larger garden this year and adding containers to our back porch, so it was fun to get ideas on how to make the most of the space that we have.  I’ve enjoyed puttering in the dirt as far back as I can remember, and I want to start teaching the kids to enjoy growing vegetables and flowers as much as we do.  I love the smell of fresh potting soil, the way it crumbles in your hands, watching the seeds start to sprout, anxiously awaiting the first ripe tomatoes from the vine.  Growing a garden takes me back to my childhood, walking the rows of vegetables in my godmother’s garden, picking okra and snapping green beans, eating green plums off the tree out of my grandfather’s orchard.  My parents didn’t grow vegetables, but my mother loves planting flowers and she has the most exquisite gardenia and camellia bushes in front of her house.  It’s just part of the way of life I grew up with, and I want to pass that down to our children.

 

28. Through

Through the looking glass…

Due to a variety of factors, I use our laundry room to get ready for work in the mornings.  The short explanation is that we are using an unconventional space utilization to make our house live bigger than it actually is.  We’re in the awkward place of having a house that is “big enough” if we just look at square footage, but too small when we look at how the rooms are laid out.  I really don’t want to move, but I’m resigned to the fact that we probably will be doing so within the next few years.

As I was thinking about this earlier tonight, I was remembering my great-grandmother’s house.  I will be honest, I could not navigate back to the house now if I had to – I have the memory of riding there with my grandmother on Friday mornings after doing her grocery shopping for her.  I would go with my grandmother when I wasn’t in school, checking off her list from two different grocery stores and the bakery.  Great-grandmother had a tiny little brick house in the city: a front living room, kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms on an urban lot.  No garage, just one of those metal-roofed carports.  I don’t remember a basement – it’s possible, but they are not common in the area where I grew up.  I think about that house, knowing that she lived in it for 40 years, that she raised a family there, and I wonder how she did it.  How was it that a small, two-bedroom house was big enough for them, and we feel cramped in a house three times that size?

And I wonder too, maybe it wasn’t big enough for them, maybe she wished that she had another room for the kids to play in and an extra bathroom.

But it makes me think about how we live, about what we could change, about what we would be willing to change.  I really do not want the stress of a larger house payment, and we don’t want to move out of this school zone, and I really.  really. hate. moving.  We’ve talked about the possibility of remodeling, but the numbers just are not cost effective.  So it’s either figure out a way to make the space work where we are, or bite the bullet and deal with the complications of getting a larger, or at least more well laid out, house.

The downside of that is that we will be in the theoretical larger house for what, 20? 30? years, and then we’re probably going to want to move back into something smaller.  Our parents are dealing with this now, the four and five bedroom houses that are so empty now that all the kids have moved away.  They are wondering, and I’m sure we will be wondering, whether the upkeep on the larger place is worth keeping the memories that reside there.

It’s just another piece of this life now, trying to decide the best path forward that takes into account all of our needs.  Two more little lives that have to be weighed in the decisions that we make.

 

27. Sun

Another example of why I need to find photo prompts from someone in the Northern hemisphere. There was no sun showing today – the light was diffused through a grey January ceiling yet again. I imagine that in Australia it was a beautiful midsummer day, warm and bright and golden. But here, not so much. I spent the day curled on the couch sniffling into soggy tissues and refereeing two bored housebound kids. They’re tired of being inside and tired of us and tired of each other, but it’s too wet to be outside and I’m not about to take our germs back out into public. You would think with as many toys as we own that they could play for weeks on end, but they only want to harass each other and steal the one thing their sibling wants. The joys of being 21 months apart.

It’s not just them either. I’m having a hard time with winter this year. I never really got over the time change, and the darkness is corroding my spirit. I have to drag myself out of bed in the morning, and I dread driving home each evening in the dark. I feel worn down, sluggish and slow. I find myself wishing I was anywhere but here, no matter where “here” is. I feel perpetually sleep deprived and like I’m missing some key nutrient in my diet. I know part of that is the unrelenting exhaustion of small children, but it feels like more than that right now. I miss the sun on my skin and the opportunity to just go sit outside for a little while. I miss the green growing things and the feeling that the world is alive all around me.

The good thing about living here is that the darkness is already starting to lift. In a month and a bit, it will warm up and the time will change back soon after. Spring will bring back the light and the sun will bring back life outside and I will feel better. I keep hanging on to that thought, letting it buoy me along until I can stand on my own again. Please summer, don’t be late.

 

26. Together

The boy and I are sick together right now.  So he got to go with me to the pharmacy to pick up decongestants and throat drops.  As much as I hate being sick, I hate them being sick even more.  I like the extra cuddles from the normally hyperactive three-year-old, but I wish they didn’t come with quite so high a price.