Well Hey There!

Is anyone here? Hello?

As my kids say, I haven't written here in a minute. Many minutes. In fact, looks like the last time we chatted, it was snowing in April.

Now I'm sweating in July.

Come sit. Right here. Can I get you something to drink? A snack? Okay. Your hair looks good.

Let's gab, shall we? Get allll caught up so we can swear to each other that it won't be so long between conversations next time, alright?

I'll go first.

Cripes, where do I start? The job is the same, still the elementary school secretary who brings the heart to work with her every damn day. My summer gig is in full swing now, where I'm still the elementary school secretary, still dragging that heart around, but at a different office and with very little to do after the morning rush is over.

So I read. A book every couple of days (currently on The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn). And it occurred to me that I could be sitting here writing. Which I'm doing right now. Hopefully, I'll finish this and hit publish and seven of you will see this and maybe say HI and I will be less rusty and less awkward and actually start writing more. Because I miss this and I miss you.

I was going to revert the whole damn blog to draft mode, put it away from public view but changed my mind (for now). The book thing I've been blathering on about for the last 800 years is still front and center in my disorganized, fanciful brain and while I want to tuck this blog away and curate some of it for the book I also need a place for potential agents/editors/publishers/Reese Witherspoon/HBO series developers to find my stuff.

So for now the blog stays. I might hide a few posts here and there but I'd really love to get back to regular posting. Even if some people say blogs are dead. I believe they have a little bit of life left.

Let's see...we've covered the job, covered the blog. What's left? KIDS.

Oh my kids. My loves. They are all doing well. The baby just graduated from high school (well, full disclosure, he's in summer school doing what my friend Whitney dubbed "credit recovery" which sounds like a debt solution biz but is actually him making up for a few less than wise choices during his senior year). Yes, you read it correctly, all of my kids are technically adults now.

HOW IN THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN.

I was at a baby shower this weekend and the mom-to-be was opening her gifts. She unwrapped a copy of Pat the Bunny and all of sudden my vision wavered. Pat the freaking Bunny. Whooooosh. I was back in time, about 20 or so years, sitting with a small person who smelled like Johnson and Johnson No More Tears and guiding their tiny soft hand to put their even tinier, softer little finger through mummy's ring. We all end up saying it, but really, time is a sneaky bitch.

So my babies are all big. And all living at home, for the moment. The biggest one is moving out (again), into a house with two lifelong friends. The second one, my beautiful daughter, took the infamous "year off" of college and is working full time. Every time I say the year off thing, I hear the line from that ancient song Welcome to the Boomtown: handsome Kevin got a little off track, took a year off from college and he never went ba-ack. Please don't be like handsome Kevin, my daughter. Because now he's got a permanent ha-ack.

The third kid just finished his sophomore year of college (and is going back, phew). He's made the Dean's List every semester and has pretty much a full ride thanks to his grades and also having a dirt poor parent. He's going to be a teacher which absolutely rocks my world but also makes me sad because of the way our education system is teetering on the brink. But it's what he's wanted to do since junior high.

And I already told you about the fourth kid. Credit recovery and all that jazz.

So, full house. All we're missing is a creepy middle aged guy with a mullet. i'm working on it

Oooh! And the dog! Walter is still kicking. Twelve years old, absolutely riddled with fatty lipomas but still very puppy-like in almost every way. Always up for a walk and currently fixated with the greenie dog treats from Costco.

What else. We're still in our sweet rental home, over eight years now, and I am still delusional enough to fantasize on the regular about buying it. The incredible Landlord is still incredible but he's no dummy. The housing market in our city is going nuts and the property alone is worth a ton. The house itself is at best a fixer upper but in all likelihood will ultimately be purchased by one of the godforsaken developers who have infested our quaint little burb with ticky tacky, crammed together McMansions. And so I sit out on the porch, or on the back deck, and watch the majestic craggy trees which have been a canopy over my little family for so long sway in the wind and count the minutes we still have left here. In my more deranged fugues I make lists of what I'd do to each room if the house really did belong to me and money was plentiful: well, this tired carpet would be the first to go and we'd put in some sweet sweet hardwood. Oh my god this kitchen...we'll make this whole back wall windows, knock out that weird bar thing and put french doors out to the backyard. 

Sometimes I think it would be hilarious to have a dictation machine linked to my brain just to see what goes through there every day. Scratch that. It would actually be kind of scary.

I joined Weight Watchers in March, after my homie Danielle sent a text at 8:00 p.m. saying "I just joined Weight Watchers". I had no choice but to join her because she's the one with whom I do the majority of my Fun Eating. Our other muskateer, Joyce, joined the day after and together we are making some incredible metabolic magic. We are all down about 45 pounds each and it hasn't been that hard. Oh sure, I was a complete bitch for the first month, because I was straight up GRIEVING the loss of all that delicious food seasoned with feelings. But somehow, we've stuck with it.

Truth be told it was hard for me to sign up because of the money. It's $18 a month (i'm doing the online only) but it was still an agonizing decision. Now I'm glad I did it but the guilt is still there.

Rest assured I'll write more about it. And yes, those of you who have been around here a while, this isn't my first foray into Weight Watchering. Only this time, it's working. I have the best "Before" picture...when I hit the 50 lb mark maybe I'll share it.

LOVE. I still haven't found it. I mean, honey I have all the love I can handle from kids and dog and friends but the kind that is romantic and sexy is still eluding me. There were a few dates with this one guy, we met in one of those old timey organic ways (a set up). I was a psychotic whirling dervish for the week leading up to our first date. My poor friends! Joyce and Danielle helped me with the outfit (that was two or three sizes ago!) and my beautiful benevolent friend Kathryn transformed my Hagrid tresses into a lovely sweet smelling almost-human mane.

The dude? He was great! Tall and good looking and laughed at my inane attempts at humor. What was missing was any sort of spark. Like, I could see us as friendly acquaintances but not once during our time spent together did I look at his hands and wonder what they'd feel like giving my hair a good pull. And this was after a martini or two at Yard House.

It would appear that he also was having a hard time imagining anything beyond a casual friendship so all's well that ends well and once again I'm back to my spinstery ways of coarse ringlets, lots of girl's nights out and basically zero shits given about dying alone.

Although I did have one really weird night where the thought of being alone forever almost overwhelmed me. I'm usually really blase about it, you know? "If it's meant to be, it will be" and all that, and being fairly comfortable with how things are. But on a Saturday not too long ago, I felt every last bit of that singleness and the best word I can think of to describe it would be hollow. It was a little scary, the depth of that hollow feeling and for the first time in ages I found myself longing for companionship.

Luckily, it passed.

PHEW. Are we all caught up now? How about you? You good? I hope so. Let's do this again, sooner rather than later.

I will wrap up this literal purge with some pics of the raccoon family that lives in our backyard. I am capital O obsessed with them.