How Many Bloggers Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?

It's early in the morning. My kids are both still asleep, and the little guy that I'm watching full-time for March and April has just arrived. He grabs both remote controls, points them at the TV and says: music! every morning as soon as he gets here. I put a Common CD into the DVD player, turn on the TV and adjust the volume. He lets me choose the music, and I pick from the grown-up CDs on the top half of the shelf. I turned all the kiddie CDs over to my son after months of battling over scratches, and now they're all scratched beyond listening, but they belong to the kids, and I'm perfectly okay with that. It gives us an excuse to start the day with Common instead of The Wheels on the Bus. Little dude smiles at the start of the song and takes off into the train table corner. He likes to play independently when he arrives to a sleeping household. It's his only chance all day to be the boss of every toy! I pick up my laptop to start my story here.

I had been scrolling through facebook before little man arrived, and I clicked and opened the most recent post at The Not-Ever-Still Life. Robin wrote about taking up sewing, and a little bit about finally having the time and freedom to take up sewing now that her youngest is a toddler. Reminiscing about the start of her blog, and the name she chose, she wrote, "I was thinking of the whirlygig whirling dervish cyclone effect of it all, that there was always a baby to nurse or a diaper to change or two diapers to change and a milk to pour, or a diaper to change and a spill to clean and a hungry child screaming and a misplaced critical item and a mess just stepped in."

That description struck something inside me, as I read it. Like the peal of a bell. THAT's what I like about mothering -and teaching- young children. I LIKE the whirlygig, whirling dervish, cyclone effect of it all.

* * *

What's written above is as far as I got this morning, little dude playing peacefully with trains, before I heard my daughter wake up. We went to get her, and our busy day began. The housekeeper came back today, after a 2 week vacation that only served to remind me how very much I despise washing the floors. So I spent the first few hours of the day feeding the little ones and racing around, furiously tidying. We all got out of the house by 10am and went to a playground. We came home to a clean house (just in time to mess it up again!). I heated macaroni and meatballs for the little guy, stirred his daily medicine into his applesauce and served it. I heated gyro filling for my girl, topped it with tzatziki sauce, tore pita into pieces with my hands and set it out on the highchair tray for her. I bibbed them both, and filled sippy cups, and I asked my boy: are you sure you're not hungry yet, Bubs? about 3 times before I took his word for it. I hummed while I zipped here and there, kitchen to the dining room and back again, and then I diapered times two, and I lullaby-CD'd one, and I recliner-rocked the other, and then I had them down for nap.

So I was scrolling through facebook again, while my big boy played independently at the train table, and I clicked and opened the most recent post at Momastery. Glennon wrote about her need to write, and how her sister gifted her with a laptop that allowed her to do it. Thinking back to the early years of her children's lives, she wrote, "I know, because I hear from you regularly, that there are mamas out there that feel completely fulfilled and filled by mama-ing itty bitty ones. I used to be mad at you – and secretly believe you were lying – but I know better now. I’ve read so many of your stories that I realize you don’t feel this way just to spite me. It’s just that we’re all different, and that is a beautiful thing. It’s okay."

That's what it is! I thought. It DOES fill me up to do this work, and it fulfilled me long before I had babies of my own. Meeting with my college advisor, I told her I thought teaching was the field for me, and when she asked what age, I answered: the younger the better. That's the story of how I ended up studying early childhood education.

* * *

I think I tried to say it here, still home on maternity leave after the birth of my daughter, when I wrote, "...our day is both busy and mellow, ebbing and flowing from moment to moment. It's like a dance I have to perform. I know the basic steps but never the tune that will play from day to day. So I have to improvise. Sure, I trip sometimes, end up in a heap on the floor, both babies crying at the same time, one wailing and bobbing at the breast, the other climbing loudly onto my lap, competing for space and seemingly for volume with their sobs. But even this is part of the performance. Can I keep my cool? Can I breathe into my belly, straighten my spine, scoop my daughter to the side to make room for my son, spread my arms wide enough to embrace them both, set my voice to the most soothing of tones, and move us all from chaos to a carefully choreographed quiet?

When I do find the rhythm? When I manage to dance through the day with something resembling grace? To keep balanced both babies, my husband and my house and a small space for myself, just enough to catch my breath and stretch, to catch the beat and ready my feet for the next number?

It's exhilarating."

* * *

It's not just that it's exhilarating, or fulfilling, or that I simply like a little chaos in my day (although all of those are probably true). There's something in it -for me- that I think maybe other people find in prayer or in yoga, in meditation or in climbing mountains. There's a sense that I'm just a vessel, with grace flowing through me. That if I get out of the way and let it flow, nothing I do can be wrong. My feet won't stumble or step the wrong way. My arms will always be big enough. My voice will forever be calming and melodious. I can create calm out of chaos just by being. By suspending my own will, tossing it off to the side like the temporary cloak that it is, and letting this other thing take over and move through me, I become the calm. I carry it with me because it is me for that little while.

I find this center of perfect zen stillness in the hurricane's eye of unending needs that little children exhale like carbon dioxide, and then I counter their exhalations by breathing calm all over the place, and I watch it take over, taming everything in it's path. And I feel absolutely delighted that it traveled through me to get here.

That's the closest I come to finding God, and it's why instead of going to church, I care for young children.

I Jumped!

And the parachute opened on the way down!

I FINALLY got up the cojones to e-mail the parents of both of the boys I watch and ask them about starting a teaching blog. And they both loved the idea!!!

So my teaching blog is up and running, with it's own facebook page and everything! I'm not going to link to it, because I'm anonymous here, and public there. This is where I come to tell all my secrets and wrestle with my mid-thirties angst. That will be the public face of my teaching journey, and something to put on my resume if or when I return to the workplace. And never the twain shall meet! Ha!

If you'd like to  check it out, though, leave me a comment with an e-mail address and I'll send you a link! I'm excited about this. I've been floundering professionally for the past few months, even as I devour information daily and become a better teacher by leaps and bounds. It's the community of colleagues that I miss. It's having people to bounce ideas off of, and discuss failures, and celebrate successes. I hope this is step toward creating that in a new way.

I hope this is a step into whatever future I discover -or create- as a teacher.

The Myth of Doing it All

I found this today. Nearly a year late, but I'm not going to apologize for that. Because keeping up on blogs is not something I do anymore, although I once did. And what's more? I needed this today. I read through all 82 comments, and each and every one was a balm to my poor, angsty soul (I find myself embarrassed by the naval-gazing angst I'm able to summon at 35. I thought I was done with that after 17. Apparently not. I'm a veritable fountain of naval-gazing angst these days. You short on it? No worries. Just fill me in on the details of your situation. I can probably summon some extra angst on your behalf. I can gaze at your navel too! Life is hard for everyone. I find myself particularly skilled at bemoaning that fact on a regular basis these days. ).

So, in the spirit of myth-busting, here are the things I don't do:

• My appearance doesn't really matter a fig to me right now. I color my hair from a box, less frequently than I ought to, if the goal is really to cover the grey. I wear yoga pants daily. Sometimes they even have bleach stains or small holes (that I tell myself nobody else notices). I'm 30 25 pounds overweight and have VERY few clothes I fit into. I don't buy new clothes because I'm cheap, and I'm broke, and I fully intend to lose this weight, even though I've accepted that it might take me a long time to do so. (I just took up jogging and lost 5 pounds in 10 days. Exercise is one of the things I DO do.) I almost never wear make-up, and I pull my dirty hair back into a tight ponytail, imagining that no one can tell how dirty it is far more often than is recommended by any standards whatsoever. Manicures and pedicures are foreign concepts to me, and I'd choose a massage first anyway, if offered the choice. There are so many things in my life that need work. My appearance is simply not one of them that matters enough to me. I'll be beautiful on the outside when I'm beautiful -and balanced- on the inside. I'm content to wait, and focus my attention on the inside for the time being.
• I don't fold the kid's clothes. At some point in the last year, I realized that all of my children's clothing are made of cotton and/or fleece. WHAT is the point of folding that? I separate them into piles and stuff them into drawers. Far from apologizing for this, I think it's genius. My only regret is that it took me more than 2 years of my son's life to figure it out. I'm also pretty bad at keeping up on the laundry in general. I do it, but not in a timely fashion. And then once I wash it, it takes me forever to fold it and put it away. We live out of laundry baskets is more or less what I'm sayin'.
• I'm really floundering, professionally, and I beat myself up over it pretty regularly. I plan curriculum for the kids, but infants and toddlers don't care that much about curricular plans, and so I fail as often as I succeed. I started a professional blog, and then froze, afraid to ask the parents for permission to blog about their kids. It's sitting, a series of incomplete drafts, waiting. And judging me. I need to ease up on myself here. And I also need to just ask permission, already. I'm stuck at frozen, though. And maybe that's okay. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's okay. But at the same time: I have a really hard time just letting it be okay.
• I've always been okay with letting my housework suffer. I frankly don't give a shit if my floors are clean. But suddenly, I can't ignore dirty floors! My house is my classroom. This: Honestly, it SUCKS! I actually kind of miss my dirty house. But, I've hired someone to help me keep it clean, and I have no qualms or guilt over this at all. Just grateful it's an option, and determined to do what I have to do to balance the budget and make it work (no new clothes? no problem! as long as someone other than me cleans the friggin' floors!!!).

And -because I haven't done it enough recently- I want to look at what I AM doing:

• I'm a kind, loving parent and child care provider. I don't give myself nearly enough credit for this. Some days I really beat myself up over being "short tempered". And then I really think about it and realize: I sighed. That's all I did. I sighed a few times, and inside my mind, I'm suddenly a terrible, terrible teacher, ZOMG! The kids don't seem to notice. And that's because I am -the vast majority of the time- patient, loving, and kind. And the kids who come here know it, and they're happy here. And MY kids know it, and they are loving and kind to me in return. That's important. And I do it well. I should pat myself on the back for this more often.
• I exercise nearly every day. I do yoga stretches almost daily, and pilates and jogging a few times a week. I've always hated jogging, and this past month is the first time I've stuck it out. Tonight I walked a half-mile to a reservoir near my house, and jogged 2.4 miles around it (3 laps). Then I walked a half-mile home. For the first time ever, it felt great to jog. I'm proud of myself for that.
• Since September, I've been working very hard to eat intuitively. This is SUPER HARD for me because I HATE to pay attention to my body. I'm NOT a sensory learner, and it takes a lot of hard work and concentration to tune into sensory cues. But I've done it, and I've gotten better with practice. I didn't lose any weight at all between September and January, but (like I mentioned above) I lost 5 pounds in 10 days as soon as I started running. I believe this is due not just to running, but to the fact that I've been practicing listening to my body, and feeding it healthy food that makes it feel great for the past number of months. We also plan our lunches and dinners, and eat whole, fresh, homemade foods regularly. This is very hard work, but we make the time and effort for it (my husband gets the credit for cooking it!), and we're doing a better job with it now than we've ever done before.
• I make the effort to plan curriculum, and carry it out with the kids. Not all the time, and it doesn't always work. But it would be easy not to make the effort at all, and I do. And when I fail, I come back to the drawing board and try again. This, too, is an area where I tend to see my failures looming larger than my successes. But I think making the effort, again and again, is a success of it's own. Both of the boys have significantly improved language skills since starting here, and while I can't claim all the credit for that, by any means, I can probably claim some. I'm a good teacher. It's often feels like I'm teaching in a vacuum, where no one cares if I bother or not. I'm used to reporting directly to the state department of education. I'm used to having big names in Albany in my rolodex, and my in-box. So what I do now often feels like less like a step down, and more like a leap off a cliff to the no-man's land below. But I haven't given up. I practice good teaching in no-man's land. Nobody sees it. Nobody seems to care. But I keep doing it.
• Finally, my husband and I both deserve some credit for this: we are in what's probably the hardest season of our life together so far, and we are kind to one another. We are soft, and supportive, and loving. We make each other better, but we also make each other feel better, when it might be easier to blame or bicker. Sometimes I am so full of the overwhelmed it seems impossible that it won't leak out the seams and spill all over the one person who can take it. But I breathe deeply, and ask him how his day was, and then rather than fight, we sit together and talk about how hard life is for us right now, and we offer each other permission to forgive ourselves our failings. We're in it together, a good team. And sometimes it seems the way we baby each other through the hard is the very best way to survive it.

What do you do best? What could you give a flying fig about? Tell me in the comments, pretty, pretty please. I need to hear it! And maybe, just maybe, it would do you some good to say it, too.

From My Brain to Your Screen

So I'm a listmaker, and my brain has been brimming with a million ideas for posts that I never quite find the time to make sense of. So I'm just going to spit it all out, bullet-point style (I love bullet points) (yes, I'm totally serious) (bullet points are awesome!), and we'll see what ends up rising from the muddy swamps of my mind.

• I love, love, love being home with my babies. Less than 3 weeks left of maternity leave. I'm not ready to go back to work. At all. But I'm going to, for a couple different reasons: financial/practical (I've wanted to talk for a while about Linda Hirshman and the so-called opt-out revolution; it's playing an ironic role in my own choices right now), the feeling that I'm doing good in the world through my work (is this a spiritual impulse? maybe.), and an overall desire to integrate my family and work life, which I think will mean a lot of hard work for me, but will be so worth it in the end (this is a spiritual impulse).

• And speaking of spiritual impulses, remember when I said I would pray about how to practice spirituality since I'm not particularly religious? Well, I did, and I got an immediate and very clear response. The answer was not particularly surprising; it's something I've thought about for years. And yet, months later, I'm still not doing it. I might need to create some Internet accountability by writing about it here!

• Blogging about blogging: I'm recognizing a certain tendency in my writing to describe things in a vague, stylized manner. It's all well and good, for what it is, but I don't think I know how to write plainly about everyday life, and I want to be better at that. I don't know exactly how, but I'd like to work on it.

• And one reason I want to be better at it is because I want to capture the everyday details of this time with my babies. It's magic; it really is. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever done, and I want to remember every crazy minute of it. So I have to capture some of the stories that describe how we spend our days. This could easily be a series of posts, rather than just one.

• Finally, I might need to mourn the end of my maternity leave, in words. And I might need to give myself a pep talk about returning to work, because I do know it's the decision I'm going to make (I can't say the right decision because there are so many decisions that could be right. This is the best one for where I am right now.). And I do love my job. I could just use a reminder to psyche me up, after I'm done saying goodbye to my (too) short stint as a SAHM.

• And oh yeah, exercise again. I finally made the decision and resigned from my yoga jobby. I'm really committed to figuring out how to give my body what it needs without counting on "going to work" to provide it. It will be a huge challenge for me, but I want to try. I think it would be the very best gift I could give myself.

So these are some of the ideas I've had swimming around in my head. Whaddaya want to hear about? Any requests? Maybe if I know somebody is waiting for a story it will inspire me to sit my sleepy butt down at the keyboard instead of on the couch one of these nights and start writing, sooner rather than later! Any of the above, or something brand new? I'm open to inspiration, universe! Sock it to me!

Writing about Writing and Fighting with Winter

As a child, I remember one thing I knew for certain was that I did not want any sort of career that required me to write for a living.  See, I liked writing.  And while this might seem counterintuitive, I didn't want that joy to be sullied by everyday repetition, regular requirements, and deadlines.  I wanted to keep my voice for myself, to say only what and when I wanted to say, to hoard my words, a quiet source of solitary pleasure for a girl with five sisters who had few opportunities to have everything the way I wanted it, few chances to choose not to share, collaborate, compromise.

I wanted to be the whole and only boss of my words.

Though this has resulted in far fewer of them being written down, and less opportunity for development and improvement of my writing skills, I have never regretted it.  If being a "real" writer means (as I have often read that it does) that you don't want to write, but that you must write, then I am quite happily less than real.  Unreal.  Or surreal?  Whatever the case may be!  I go long periods without writing, and I am perfectly content with it.  It's not at all that I simply must write.  It's that I want to.  And I really like it that way.

Still a thrill, in my mid-thirties, to be the whole and only boss of something, even if it is only my own words, my own place to play without sharing a single thing!

So in the spirit of purely recreational writing, starting tomorrow I will be re-running a four-part series I wrote last year about winter.  I had only been blogging about a month when I started it, and I drove home from work each afternoon thinking about the next post, excited to sit down after my son went to sleep, put fingers to keyboard, and see what happened.  I had a lot of fun writing it!  For me, and for now, that's the whole point.

This winter series is apropos for another reason too.  Namely, here it is again, and here I am again, both hating its guts and trying hard to embrace and make the best of it.  Having two children is thus far lovely, but it would be far lovelier in the spring or fall, with the option to spend some time each day outdoors.  My son needs to move, and so do I, but it's hard to convince myself to do it when it's twenty-something degrees outside and it means leaving the baby and my husband indoors, carrying my cell phone and waiting for the call to rush home and nurse.

Yesterday my boy and I did an hour or so of yoga together, incorporating his new plastic play tent and tunnel as props in our stretching routine and utilizing his big alphabet floor puzzle as a cushioned mat between our spines and the hardwood floor.  I let him climb me in certain poses (Child's Pose) and ride on my back in others (Cat and Cow), and directed him to crawl, jump and run while I contorted into corresponding poses (a homemade mash-up of Sun Salutation components) and offered enough high-fives and high-jinks to keep it interesting.  But I'm not always quick and creative enough to make the best of our too-often-too-messy house to meet his needs, or my own, before we begin to get stir-crazy.  We've gone out almost daily on "family drives" just to get out of the house, but neither cruising the city neighborhoods nor ransacking the various branches of the county library offers enough exertion to wear us out the way a summer hike or morning spent swimming would be able to do.

I choose to live in Upstate New York, in one of the snowiest cities in the continental United States, and yet winter and I ... well, we've never gotten along.  And so each year I battle the elements, determined one of these days (or years) to be able to say:  I love winter!

It won't be this year.

But last year: I loved writing about winter.  And this year: I love that I keep trying to make the best of it, with plastic tents and tunnels, alphabet puzzle playmats, city drives through snowy neighborhoods, and everyday outings turned adventures with the inclusion of a new baby, the creative eyes of a toddler, and the ongoing efforts of his parents.

Much like the act of writing for my own silent pleasure in the words themselves, I like to sneak what moments of glee I can covertly gather in the face of an adversary much larger than myself.  I won't win the war with winter.  But that doesn't mean I can't score a few smackdowns in battles along the way, and take a couple moments to thoroughly savor their thrill.

I hope you enjoy reading about winter over the next few days as much as I enjoyed writing about it!  And I wish us all much joy and pleasure in the words that the cold winter weather gives us extra time to compose.  See, one more small seasonal victory!  Take that, winter!

Cast of Characters, Reprised

LazyBones, CoffeeBuzz, The Mama, The Wife, Teacher/Administrator/Yoga Instructor at Work, Resident CouchPotato and DayDreamer at Home:  Does the Mothering and Wife-ing, major in General Studies: Household Organization, minors in Laundry and Menu-Planning. Works part-time in Education and has a Yoga Jobby (job-hobby). Prefers sitting to standing. Prefers lying down to sitting. Prefers daydreaming to almost anything. Requires coffee to achieve basic, everyday life tasks. Possesses an almost supernatural ability to chill. Moves at the speed of light for the amount of time it takes caffeine to travel throughout bloodstream, achieving monumental tasks such as: tidying living room, and starting the laundry. Resumes chilling immediately upon drug exiting the system.  Waiting wistfully for the day when reading a book results in a clean house and mattress testers are finally paid what they are so clearly worth.

MoodyPants, SuperSpouse, The Dada, The Husband, Teacher/Artist at Work, Overachiever Everywhere, and Grump-or-Goofball Extraordinaire at Home (depending on the day): Does the Fathering and Husband-ing, major in Kitchen Care, minor in Grocery Procurement and Preparation.  Teaches Art all day for pay; makes his own by the light of the moon.  Achieves more before breakfast than most people do in a month. Cooks like a five star chef, cleans like a maid on meth, and works harder than John Henry with a hammer in his hand. But when it's a full moon: watch out. Possesses demon moods that have been known to escape the limits of the body and cast a dark shadow throughout the land. Attempts to harness said moods as weapon of warfare against rogue states currently ongoing. Ability to wither whole rooms with a look. Condition can be mitigated with ingestion of microbrewed beverages, so if you come calling when the moon is full, you'd better come correct.  You've been warned.  Wishing for a handyman, a million dollars, or both along with that beer, so he can take a well-deserved break.

The Boy, The Toddler, Boy Child, Big Brother, Etc.: Bigger of the two children, Toddler, Too-Soon-To-Be-Preschooler.  Communicates primarily through Squealing (with joy), Shouting (goes well with any emotion!) and Repeating (until he gets the response he seeks).  Thus far has demonstrated inheritance of the maternal capacities for both endless chatter and limitless loafing: chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool. Still incapable of shootin' some b-ball outside of the school.  Capacity to surpass father in the following cantankerous skill-sets: bursting into tears for no apparent reason whatsoever (Dada has simply never mastered this rudimentary skill), and winning arguments with a single word (see: MINE! NO! and WHY DADA?) (Okay, that's two words.  But twice as effective.) (Neither parent has this skill.)  (Why use one word when you could use ten?).  Lover of cheese sticks, french toast, and those disgusting mandarin oranges that come in a can.  Generally an easy kid, but he wants what he wants, when he wants it.  And he will tell you about it.  Again and again.  Until you respond.  Correctly. 

The Girl, The Baby, Girl Child, Little Sister, Etc.: Newborn baby.  Communicates primarily through Grunting, Rooting and Attempting to Latch onto the closest available protrusion (Mama's cheek, Dada's nose, why not?).  Not a blank slate, but not prepared to be summed up quite so easily as all that yet, either.  A mystery unfolding; a tale in the telling.  A fat-faced, blue-eyed, breastfeedin' fool.  Conceived on her mama's birthday following a miscarriage and months of waiting.  Born days before Christmas, just on time to receive a tree full of presents and provide a tax break for the calendar year of her birth.  A much wanted, much loved little bambina, just waiting to show us who she is.  Certain only to be full of surprises. 

Happy, Happy New Year

Sometimes when the doctors say: No Exercise, what they mean is: No Exercise Unless the weather gets above 50 degrees in Upstate New York on the first day of January after the snowiest December on record, AND you are attempting to engage in earnest with the fact that you have 50 (OMG!) pounds you would really, really like to lose, AND your toddler has a touch (just a touch) (or perhaps a chronic case) (and you might be catching just a touch of it yourself) (or a chronic case) of cabin fever, AND your neighborhood has an undeniable chronic case of hilliness with no flat places to walk whatsoever, AND there is a reservoir within walking distance of your abode and when you hike the steep, still-snowy stairs with your boy to the top the water is so blue it's indigo in some places and turquoise in others, AND you got 12 hours of cumulative sleep last night (not uninterrupted, no, of course not, but still, 12 hours!). But if all those exemptions apply, then by all means exercise.

At least, I'm pretty sure they mean exactly that.

I'm seldom moved to blog just to record the chronological details of my day, although it was exactly that impetus that inspired my first blog entry (which actually became my second) just over a year ago. And here I am again on a Saturday, the first day of the year which seems like it must be a good omen of some sort, and a similar sort of day (walking the neighborhood with my husband and kiddos) inspiring me to chronicle the details for posterity.

I slept til 11. I think that bears saying twice.  I slept til 11.

And though it was New Year's Eve, I went to sleep at around 11 last night, too. Life is good, when such a thing happens.

We had company in the late morning (my sister and brother-in-law have been here since Thursday, and an aunt and uncle were in town and stopped by for an hour to meet the baby), and when the house cleared out ate a late breakfast of leftover quiche (we had an appetizer tray for dinner last night, with pale ales, a bottle of wine that never got opened, a fire in the fireplace, two Netflix discs of Modern Family, and more than one of us falling asleep in the living room before midnight. We still know how to rock it out, hardcore, as you can see.), took an afternoon neighborhood walk in the lovely warmth of the melting snow, then a slow, meandering city drive, and are beginning a quiet evening at home.

We maneuvered steep hills wearing ourselves and the toddler out, and I can't wait to move my body again. I never want to exercise so desperately as at the end of pregnancy and immediately post-partum. My body aches to be fast and fluid, in my command. I want to run.

Most of the time, let me assure you, I do not want to run.

And I really oughtn't to take up running before my six week post-partum check-up. I do hope that in a month from now I still want so desperately to run.

After our walk we came back for a quick lunch and then went out for a family drive, taking the easy route to putting the toddler down for a nap. We drove through downtown looking at lights, the giant tree they display every year next to ice skaters circling the rink, brick buildings hovering over our heads, humanity out in the streets en masse enjoying the unseasonable warmth of the day. Both kids slept peacefully while we wandered the city streets in my husband's car, staring out our windows in quiet contentment, weaving up and down side streets, through neighborhoods neglected backed up against those well loved, buildings swelling with light, heat and heartbeats interspersed with plywood windows and old graffiti fighting for territory. This city is my home, and the truth is, it's a version of the city I called home as a child, but with more hope. I breathed that hope in, quiet as a prayer while my children slept, breathing warm sighs into our car moving with stealth down streets of luck and ruin.

We came home to the place we make our own in this city we've chosen almost at random after a decade of flitting about. We settled in with my cup of tea and my husband's bottle of beer leftover from last night's bounty, still mostly untouched. The kids continue to sleep quietly, although the baby is starting to stir. I have time to write, and then edit one-handed with her tucked in the nook of my arm. My husband is on the couch, relaxing with the laptop his dad surprised him with for Christmas, the best gift he received by far this year.

I am greedy for the details of this day because I want every day to be as simple and exquisite as that day that finally drove me to begin blogging after almost a year of procrastination, so I would remember, have record, of the moments when the ordinary became extraordinary. I am greedy for more days as easy and magical as this first day of this new year, the second time I've been moved to jot down the details in remembrance of an ordinary day just splitting at the seams with simple happiness.

I think it was Anne Lamott who said that all prayers boil down to Please and Thank You.

Today is Thank You.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, and a deep inhale, and a hold, like you don't even want to exhale. You just want to pause here, for a little bit longer.

The Pungent Lush of Quiet

I'm here in these summer nights, planning to write, and thinking of posts, and starting stories in my head.  And then nothing.  I nap, or lie lazily on a couch staring up into the warm summer air, tracing circles in the sky with my fingertips.  There's so much inside, and so much outside too, so much everything all around me, that I can't do much but rest, soak it all in, and wait to find the words.

We came home from our vacation and my boy, after ten days with his mama's full attention, was not at all ready for mama to go back to work.  Which he has told me.  And told me.  And told me.  Through tears and loud, choking sobs, and cries of:  Mama, I want hold you! and Mama, NO work, NO office, Mama!

And then there were the days last week when we feared something might be wrong with our daughter, and the waiting for the next ultrasound, and the waiting for the appointment with the genetic counselor, and the waiting to see if the amnio would be necessary.  And in the end, it wasn't necessary, and all will be well, or at least our chances at well are equal to anyone else's, which is really all you can ask for, and plenty enough for me! 

But in the meantime it was hard not to answer Mama, I want hold you! with indulgence every time.  Except, I do have to go to work.  And he's not making it easy on me in the slightest.  And once I arrive, I am nearly drowning in to-do lists and ought to stay all day instead of just the morning if I'm ever to get all these things done.  I have a new collaborating partner, and I'm thrilled and excited about everything we'll be able to accomplish together.  But after a brief lull in demands as the last program year came to a close, things are quickly ramping up again, and a week's vacation seems to be a poor method for staying on top of one's game.  So while at work I am a whir of meetings and notes, post-its and reminders, paperwork and planning, training and racing and touching base and following up and forgetting as many things as I remember most days!  I come home a weird combination of wired and tired, my thoughts leaping like a hobo hopping trains across the country in a pattern with no discernible overriding logic, except the mad dash for freedom without the costs.

I bought a new dining room set, but we have no plan for what to do with the old one.  My husband went to pick up a batch of firewood from a freecycle ad and walked away with a jogging stroller thrown in for good measure (a single to use instead of the bulky double jogger I usually lug about).  He also responded to an offer of a chalkboard, which turned out to be a huge, heavy piece the size of one wall in our dining room with a beautiful white wooden frame.  We can't hang it until we buy a set of toggle bolts to hold its weight.  I found the perfect desk for sale for $300, and then discovered an almost exact match on craigslist for $40.  It came with a hutch we don't want.  So the dining room sets, and the jogging stroller and the chalkboard and the new desk, and the unwanted hutch are all taking up space in the dining room along with the couch I'm hoping to replace with the next paycheck, and a blond-wood bench our boy is just beginning to outgrow, and an ever-growing pile of paperwork including, but not limited to, all the mail collected for us while we were away.  Just walking through the room makes me tired.  I imagine that I could work my way through the room if only I could simultaneously work my way through a bottle of wine, but that may just be my excuse for gliding through it each day as if I'm incapable of taking action.  I do, indeed, feel incapable of taking action for the time being.

Once I make it through the messy maze of dining room I find myself confronting a hallway covered in a patchwork of paint samples.  All the possible colors we're considering bumping up against each other in a geometric grid of imperfect squares.  We can't choose a color; we keep buying more samples and painting new squares above, and below, and beside the other squares.  We joke that soon we'll be done with the whole room, and simply live with the patchwork of possibilities.

My son's toy supply feels like it doubled after a week with my mother-in-law, and all my classroom-like organization is lost amidst the bounty.  It is bounty - and abundance - I'm struggling under, unable to find the words or the energy to work my way through the constant chaos of feelings and things and the demands of all the luxuries of a life so full of luck and love, days thick with summer air and evenings spent in the echo of cicadas calling while we sit in deck chairs or thunder roaring as raindrops fall fast and heavy outside our open windows.

I find myself sleeping the afternoons away, leaving messes to pile on the messes, and moving through my own home like a ghost who can't possibly be expected to create order in this chaotic corporeal world.  So I lie lackadaisical on piles of pillows, and my son climbs me like a mountain, driving trucks and trains on my limbs, stopping to listen to the stories he demands in between imaginary journeys in vehicles fashioned of plastic, wood and wire.

I'm so tired, but I'm happy, and all I can do for now is rest - and be - in this pungent lush of quiet, waiting for the words to return to me.

Today must be my lucky day!  Or maybe Monday was my lucky day, but I was just a little late in finding out about it.   No, I prefer to think of today being the day.  Monday was the beginning of a hurried and harried week.  My year-end report had to be written for work.  My husband became a SAHD for the second summer in a row.  There was car shopping to complete, and extra hours to work, and a toddler to transition, and not a lot of time for relaxing and enjoying.

But today?  Today the report was completed, and turned in, and I got out at 1pm.  Today, the toddler and the husband lived in perfect harmony for the first time this week, and there were no tears.  Today I got to drive the new car and take a meandering walk along a canal with my baby boy after my yoga class.  And today I got to catch up on my blog reading, and discovered my name attached to this, over at Txting Mr Darcy:

So today is my lucky day.  But, as with most luck in this lifetime (see lottery, inheritance, etc.) there are rules!  Rules, I tell you!  And though I usually believe rules are made to be broken, I'm going to go ahead and see if I can follow them this time.  Just for the heck of it.

Rule 1:  Thank the person who gave you the award.

Well, that's not a hard one!  It's just good manners, after all.  Thank you Brooke!  If you haven't read Txting Mr Darcy yet, well then, click on over there right now and give it a gander.  You won't regret it.  And that might just be the easiest rule I've ever followed.  Excluding the one about how once you open a family sized bag of Doritos, you really must eat them all, until the bag is well and truly empty.  Although that might be less of a rule and more of a philosophy to live by.  In any case, Brooke, the award made my day, and if you lived close by I would share my family size bag of Doritos with you.  Unless you like Cool Ranch.  Then you'd have to share with my husband.

Rule 2:  List 7 things about yourself your readers do not know.

1.  I started a blog in November of 2005.  I  had never even read a blog at that point.  I wrote 1 entry.  Then I lost the blog in cyberspace, and hadn't the foggiest idea how to even find it again.  When I signed up with Blogger in November of 2009, somehow I ended up finding my old 1 entry blog from '05.  I decided it was better just to begin again than to build upon that shoddy foundation.

2.  I had a girl dream.  With my last pregnancy, I had a boy dream very early on, and knew after that night that I would be having a boy.  Well, simultaneously knew and seriously doubted it all the time.  Same thing now.  I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant with a girl.  Except, seriously, how am I supposed to believe a dream?  But I do, and it's a girl.  Maybe.  (It is.)  (Or not.)

3.  I am a terrible nicknamer.  I call my son things like skootle-dee-bootsie-bootle-dee-boo.  He sometimes refers to himself as Booty-boo now (See, that wasn't a random example.  It's one of his actual names).  I should really stop, but I can't.  Multiple members of my family call me Ned Flanders.  Although I don't know who they think they're kidding.  Where do they think I got it?

4.  I actually cook dinner twice a week now, for the first time in my life.  Taco Tuesdays, and Pizza Fridays.  Yes, we eat the same thing every Tuesday, and every Friday.  This is mostly because they are the only two things I know how to cook (although I had to learn to make tacos, and it took me a good month of Tuesdays to get it downpat), but they have the sly side effect of ensuring my variety-loving husband will not want me to take over more than two nights a week, lest he die of boredom following my menu.

5.  In addition to being obsessed with class issues, I'm also somewhat obsessed with race.  I think this is because I grew up in a neighborhood and city that was diverse, but also had a lot of racial tension.  Then I spent my college and grad school years in all-white small towns.  It left me with the unfortunate impression that racism is rampant, especially in places that aren't diverse.  I'm not quite as obsessed now that I live in a city again, but when I lived in small towns I sometimes felt weird about how often I obsessed about race.

6.  I am an all or nothing person.  So I've had periods in my life where everything I owned was organized, labeled, filed, or put away in its precise place.  Other times I keep all my clothing in large, unfolded piles on my loveseat.  I've been in a disorganized phase since we moved into this house, because we just don't have places for everything yet, and sometimes it drives me crazy.  Other times I can tune it out completely.

7.  I've never had cable television in my life.  We don't watch any TV at all, just DVDs that come through Netflix.  But the funny thing is, I order almost exclusively TV shows through Netflix.  I've been saying we'll order cable soon since 2002.  Somehow, we haven't gotten around to it.

Rule 3:  Award 5 bloggers who you've recently discovered.

Okay, here goes!

1.  Angels in the Architecture:  Besides the awesome blog name, Leel posts examples of her artwork and crafts that are very inspiring.  I've done very little crafting of my own in the last few years, but every time she posts pictures of what she's up to, I spend the afternoon daydreaming about what I'd like to make when I find the time to start creating again.  I'm also very intrigued by the story of her birth, adoption, and her family, of which she has shared a little bit.  I can't wait to hear more whenever she's ready to tell it!

2.  The Dayton Time:  Pamela (I won't use a nickname, because I know she hates nicknames.  And it would end up as Pamelootie-toot-tootie, or something equally reprehensible, anyway, in my hands.) blogs about life with her husband The Mister, and their four children.  She makes it all sound like so much fun, and even the annoyances are amusing in the way she tells them.  She sort of makes me want to cook and raise chickens, even though I shudder when I think about chickens.  And cooking, really.  But I don't shudder at all when I see that she has a new post up.  And I'm usually laughing by the time I get to the end.

3.  By the Seat of our Pants:  Jasie writes about her life and family in Port Townsend where she homeschools her son, Silas, and just bought a brand new house with her fiance, Seth.  She too, is crafty, and has awesome fashion posts about her thrift store finds.  I'm not especially fashionable, but I used to sew and create new things from thrift store finds, so I love to live vicariously through her while I take a hiatus from that side of myself.  She's also very thought provoking and has a lot of posts that leave me thinking for hours or even days later.

4.  When I Grow Up:  Michelle is married to an old friend of mine from high school.  We've never met in real life, but her husband showed her my blog after I posted it on Facebook, she commented, which led me to her blog, and the rest is history!  She's a life coach in the Big Apple, and blogs about her own process in balancing work and life, finding her bliss, and making dreams work in the everyday.  You can tell by reading that she's great at her job, and I love her Tough Question Tuesdays, and all the beautiful images she uses to illustrate her posts.

5. Corn-Bean:  Linlah takes amazing photographs, and always makes me chuckle with her dry wit.  Her posts are short, sweet, and to the point, and her pictures are worth more than a thousand words.  And there's a funny story in my family where my mom, seeing the name Linlah in my comments, thought it was my youngest sister's online alias, because her name is somewhat similar.  Alas, no one in my family can wield a camera and end up with photos as awesome as the ones I like to click through over at corn-bean, though.

So, there you go!  New reads galore, and I followed all the rules!  Look at me: making dinner, following rules.  Next thing you know I'll have my whole attic organized.  Or at least finish a family sized bag of Doritos.  I take my successes where I can find 'em.  And I hope tomorrow is a lucky day for us all!

Swimmy Headed Apologies

Every day since Monday I have intended to post.  I swear, I have.  There are a few saved drafts, an idea or three that weren't captured quickly enough and seem to have run off to Mexico to loll in the sand (or maybe they were murdered by drug lords; either way they don't appear to be coming back to me), random pretty turns of phrase that never quite went anywhere, and whole mess of fragmented thoughts that can't make it out of my head and onto this goshdarned computer screen.

Why?

Well, at the risk of grossing you out entirely, the short--and true--answer is that they are drowning in the sea of mucus that is my head.  Every thought I have, every word I speak, every attempt to impose cohesive narrative upon this messy muck that is life, is struggling mightily to swim through a sticky vat of snot to reach the outside world.  And mostly, they are failing.  My ideas ain't got nothin' on my sinuses this week.  Sorry 'bout that.  I am sincerely hoping to rejoin the world of regular posting, as well as nasal breathing, ears that hear and don't pop, and a brain that thinks quickly, like moving through air, rather than v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y slowly like swimming through molasses, very, very soon.  Yesterday would work for me, although the cruel gods of allergies, sinus, and vengeance upon my poor soul do not seem to agree.

I've already sacrificed several potentially beautiful posts to these gods, not to mention countless minutes of work time while I suffer silently, staring blankly at my computer with my box of kleenex, weighing the benefits of leaving early to go home and sleep while my son is at the babysitter's against the cost of hours subtracted from my next check but not the babysitter's payment.  Alas, I have stayed at work every day, although at what good to anyone I can't imagine.

If you've heard underground tales of successful sinus removal surgery, please let me in the secret scoop!  After this winter I would gladly give up my sense of smell (after all, I haven't experienced it much anyhow), in return for freedom from the achy head and disgusting drainage of the past few months.  Perhaps sinuses are like tonsils?  If I were only rid of them I would not miss a thing but the suffering they have caused?  One can only hope.  And, in the meantime, sleep.  Which is what I'm going to do now.  I wish you nasal passages, clear and dry, and thoughts with unfettered access to air, so they may bloom into sentences, paragraphs, and even posts.  Perhaps I will dream of such a paradise!  Goodnight, all!

Right As Rain

I figured since I use this blog as a place to complain when things are not going right (right being--of course--how I want them, when I want them), I should also report when things are going right.  So, the following things are as right as rain:

• Spring came early this year, and I absolutely love it.  I have a love letter to spring saved in my drafts, but each and every time I sit down to finish writing it, I get carried away anew with my love of the season and have to abandon the effort and go outside.  I've even had to do this during a rainstorm, wrapped in an afghan, breathing in the rain smell, standing on my covered porch because we haven't put any porch furniture out for the season yet.  A short winter, and an early spring?  Mother Nature is a Goddess, and not the bitch I thought she was when winter first descended upon us.

• Remember the time change?  Spring ahead?  Well, I sprung ahead alright, and rocked the time change like it was the Casbah!  This was the fourth time change since my son was born (yes, I just had to count that on my fingers), and I was finally prepared for the fact that it would take his carefully calibrated schedule and blow it to bits.  And I was ready.  First off, I pushed his bedtime forward an hour so that it actually remained the same.  Then I let him sleep in as long as humanly possible every morning, waking him up right before I had to put him in the car to go to the babysitter's (she lets me deliver him in pajamas and feeds the kids breakfast and lunch before dressing them so as to cut down on clothing changes due to messy independent toddler eating!).  Then--and this is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that ought to earn me a Nobel Peace Prize in Organizational Thinking (What do you mean they don't give Nobel Peace Prizes for Organizational Thinking!?  Fine, I'll take some sort of commemorative placard, both for my superior organizational skills and for using a tired corporate phrase like out-of-the-box correctly in a sentence.)--I worked an extra hour each day, for four days after the time change.  Then an extra half hour for the next three (okay, two of those were the weekend, but we put him down a half hour late for nap.  It counts).  And after a week, we were seamlessly back on schedule.  My son was none the wiser, my paycheck was slightly fatter, and I hope to be receiving a commemorative placard celebrating my accomplishments in the field of infant/toddler time change any day now.

• A dear, old friend of mine posted a Chinese proverb on facebook as her "zen of the day".  It said: Tension is who you think you should be.  Relaxation is who you are.  These simple sentences have brought me pleasure every time I think of them.  In my ongoing struggle to define God for myself, I keep coming back to certain things: the breath, committing and recommitting to my choices, the act of and the beauty in waiting, the work and transcendence in accepting, and the importance of joy.  This proverb wraps all of it up in a pretty little bow, and sends it right to me via facebook.  Thanks Universe!  And thanks Shelly!

• I sat in a rocking chair today, listening to lullabies, breathing in the sweet, sweaty scent of my toddler's head, waiting for him to fall asleep, watching slivers of silver raindrops through cracks in curtains sewn by my mother-in-law, and feeling blessedly relaxed, in no hurry whatsoever, and at peace.  And I thought: this is heaven.  And while having another baby will be its own heaven, it will necessarily preclude this one.  Why am I in such a hurry to trade this one in?  Why not just enjoy the one I've got?  And for a blessed moment, sitting in the nursery, rocking my boy to bed in the same rocking chair where I used to nurse him to sleep each night (sometimes feeling--or fighting--a mild panic/resentment, at the length of the nighttime commitment, at the uncertain end of what seemed like endless caretaking), it was that simple.  I experienced this extra time with my toddler as a gift, as this golden, shining moment without distraction.  And just then: everything was right.  Right as rain.
  

Blarney and The Rules of the Blog

BLARNEY - Cajolery; deceptive or misleading talk; nonsense; hooey; ability to talk constantly; mindless chatter; the ability to tell a man to go to hell, in such a way as he will look forward to the trip

My Irish parents have an ongoing disagreement about the role of blarney in the art of everyday conversation.  My father, being unusually short-sighted in this regard, views it as lying.  Thankfully, for this storyteller, my mother recognizes it for what it is: a way to make a good story better.

I explained to my husband early in our relationship that when I am holding forth in a group about the enormous, vicious dog that almost bit me, it is completely unnecessary for him to point out that the dog was, in fact, across the street.  Behind a fence.  On a chain.  No one needs every detail!  Especially those pesky details that detract from the humor and richness of the tale.  The spirit of the story depends upon us, our measly little mouths, our piddly words and phrases, to free it.  The spirit of the story is trapped deep inside of us, and if we allow such silly things as the strict recount of accurate details to stand in the way of that spirit....well, we are no better than animals.  Or engineers.  And I, for one, won't have it.  The terrorists of literal detail will not win.  Not here.  Not on my blog.  And I'll brook no argument from the peanut gallery either.

So just to cover my ass from any potential liability, just to satisfy any lurking literalists, and lay rest to any curious rumors that might arise from the small (gaping) cracks (chasms) that separate my stories from the droning recall of those who rise and sleep under the blanket of the very freedom of the story spirit that I provide and then question the manner in which I provide it!?!?  Well, then.  Allow me to introduce to you...

.....The Rules of the Blog

1.  My blog, my rules.
2.  Because I said so.
3.  It's for your own good.
4.  Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about.
5.  Life isn't fair.

Torpid Trifling: The Name

My sister called me, upset. This was years ago; the particulars escape me. But she picked me up, I know that, she drove a Geo Storm. Teeny, tiny little thing. The car, not my sister, although I guess it could be said of both.

So she's crying and she's saying she's fucked up her life, like I said, the particulars escape me. There are many ways she could have been appearing to fuck up her life to an outside observer, or occasionally even to an insider.

In my memory of the event it's as if I had a buzz. The way the words expanded into the inside of the front seat of the cramped car and then shimmered in the air as I said them; the sense that simply speaking called the concept into being and made it true. Like as the idea was said aloud it looked down upon itself and thought: I might just be crazy enough to be true. It's also possible that I did, in fact, have a buzz.

So what I said was something like: The things that are the very worst about you, the qualities that drive you to the brink, that will not be tamed, changed or subdued, that take you to the ugliest places you can go: These Things: are the things that will save you.

Another time, another sister, I said: Sometimes I think you have to look at whatever it is that scares you the most. Then walk directly into it.

Torpid Trifling means, in essence, Lazy Lazy. It is in my ability to lie down, stretch the line of my spine long against the earth, inhale, exhale, remain: that I will be saved.

We lead with the negative/follow with the positive here at Torpid Trifling because what we see as negative deserves a second glance sometimes. The very things we fear ought to be allowed up front occasionally, to lead the way once in a while. See where they take us. This might just be what saves us, in the end.

My Inner Teenage Boy Loves the Phrase “EPIC FAIL!”

Saturday is the reason I finally started blogging. I want to remember Saturday.

My son woke at 5. I got up with him and we spent those first few foggy, sleep-deprived but somehow sublime hours of the day snuggling on the couch and dozing. I'm going to call him Sun because children are forces of freakin' nature, and he's sunny much of the time. And he's my son. So that should make it easier to remember. I like to keep it simple here at Torpid Trifling. Some might say stupid. Okay, maybe they have said it. But that’s not the point here.

The point is Saturday morning, with a baby-turning-toddler. I’m not quite ready to concede full toddlerhood yet. He’s still a baby sometimes! And mornings are his best times.

It's magic how time moves when you’re with a baby or a child, how it melts together or speeds up or slows down and when the baby is yours you’re always tired and you’re also falling in love, both of which fuck with your sense of time. I read an article on Double X recently where they talked about the arc of parenthood and the arc of careers and the intensity of those years with young children. So at some point I want to talk more about that. But is a mommyblog even the right forum for that? Shouldn’t I be weaving tales, spinning yarns, documenting the day to day narrative of parenthood as it unfolds? I mean, at the very least I should wait until I get some readers before I start trying to make people read articles I liked and discuss them with me. Yeah, that’s probably rude. I definitely won’t do that on my first post. It would be so inappropriate.

So Saturday…

So then my husband gets up. He's going to have two names, at least. We all deserve more than one name to describe ourselves, we contain multitudes after all, Walt Whitman said so, and—yes—Sun will also be allowed to expand his repertoire as he grows into toddlerhood. I've got Storm lined up as a back-up, so I'm good there.

So my husband, MoodyPants aka SuperSpouse, gets up. We lead with the negative, follow with the positive here at Torpid Trifling.

I'll get to why, but right now I'm trying to blog about Saturday. Leading with the negative is my post about the name Torpid Trifling. The second post. Not the first. The first is supposed to be about Saturday.

Yes, I'm familiar with the fact that you're supposed to say 4 POSITIVES BEFORE A NEGATIVE; I'm a teacher; of course I've heard that. It’s like, basic teacher knowledge.

The fact is, you’re distracting me.

I want to talk about Saturday and that’s my whole impetus for finally starting here after ten months of fucking dilly dallying and now you’re going to interrupt?

I am sorry audience, I told my inner voice he was not invited to this party and his ass just didn’t listen. He never fucking listens and that is my major problem with him right now. He interrupts, he pipes up all the time with the most trivial ass shit, nobody wants to hear that shit! I’ve been told to meditate to teach his lil’ ass to sit the hell down and shut the hell up, but I’m telling you, he is bad. Bad! He NEVER shuts up, the whole time I’m tryin’ to meditate, ruins it for me. Fuckin’ ruins it for me each and every time. That’s exactly why I don’t meditate. That’s the exact reason right there. Asshole.

So ANYWAY I am going to talk about Saturday because I was alive in the details of Saturday and I need to preserve those details.

Why? (Why?)

I mean, just ‘cause Saturday flowed nicely doesn’t guarantee The Story of Saturday will flow. Saturday and The Story of Saturday are two very different things. You might want to think about that before you get started.

Mmmhmm.

Wait, now my inner voice is calling for some organization and structure here. Hold off on Saturday. Explain the blog’s name, do an About Me, maybe introduce the cast of characters. Include a pic of each. But cropped. Like, just an eye or something. Just a nose! Ha! That’d be funny. I’m still a little iffy about family pics on the Internet. I don’t even know how to crop photos. I did learn that one Christmas that we bought a scanner and photo printer and gave everyone photo collages for Christmas. I definitely knew how to crop then. But I can’t remember a damn thing about it anymore. Damn, that’s pathetic.

But my inner voice is so distractible. I mean, you hear it, right? It constantly interrupts; I’ve got this nonsense in my ear all day long! I can barely finish a thing around here.

Like motherhood? I could bring it full circle right here with some sort of tying together of the distractibility inherent in the inner voice and in motherhood, like mothering and thinking and writing and living are the same thing, all in the distracting details, and the interruptions, in the too-fast and the too-slow, in the trivial, in nonsense, and in taking the roundabout way. That’s why I chose the name Torpid Trifling. Two synonyms for lazy. Typically a pejorative, but sometimes a blessing, especially during these first few magical years of mothering.

Speaking of lazy…*yawn*…I haven’t successfully told you about either Saturday or why we lead with the negative/follow with the positive here at Torpid Trifling. But now it’s late and I’m exhausted and so my first blog entry will end like most of my days: messy and unfinished, filled with far more nonsense and interruptions than I ever intended, and …..to be continued...…