My new depression treatment:  mini donuts and bbq potato chips.

I dare you to try it and not smile.

I DARE YOU.

..and still.

Happy Anniversary and Thank You for making this quote-a-day calendar true.

I love you.

Oh, hai! I am alive, and finally crawling out from under my rock to tell you all that I’m taking a hiatus from blobbing. As if you didn’t know. Sheesh.

I am fine. The kids are fine. Chris is fine. The zoo of animals we have in the house are all fine(except for Luke the goldfish. Dead. And Luigi the hermit crab. Dead.) and stinking up the place very nicely.

Last fall I found out that all my in-laws, immediate and extended, were also writing blogs on blogger. Shocking, I know. They finally found the Internet, and the joy of personal publishing. Welcome to the new millennium. Their blogs were mostly about crafting, and their kids, and their new home business, and how much they love the Mormon church. And when I found this out, my brain, my voice, my desire to write, all went dead. I don’t have a good reason why. Maybe I felt like I had said all I had to say, that I had already put out there everything I needed to, and I could take a break. Mostly I think I felt like George in that one Seinfeld episode where he’s talking to his mom about dating. She had split from George’s dad, and was talking about how she was ‘out there’ looking for someone else. And George says something like, You are not out there because I am out there and if I see you out there, there isn’t enough voltage in the universe to electroshock me back into coherence. Yep, that’s how I felt.

So anyway, I’m finally getting around to saying goodbye, if there are any of you that still stop by to check on me. I may some day find my voice again. But for now I’m enjoying the silence.

So cute and cuddly barn kitty we found in Canada. You have no idea how bad I wanted to take her home. And if this picture doesn’t get you right there, then maybe it’s time for you to let yourself start feeling again.

We are finally done with vacations for a while, which means settling into the day to day routine of having all three kids home all day long because there is no school for them until August 20th. When I say ‘we’ I mean me and the kids, of course, because luckily Chris is going to work every day. And I say ‘luckily’ because right before we left for our vacation to Canada, everyone in Chris’ office was laid off except for Chris and two other people. Ironically the other two people not laid off are also named Chris. This fact confirms what I have already known about this company for some time, that it is being steered by a retard. But, alas, I am grateful that for the time being we still have a paycheck coming in, so I can continue to max out my credit cards and lay by the pool all day long planning my next plastic surgery procedure.

So the kids and I are at home with our old friend Cartoon Network keeping us company. It has been so hot, and with the largest wildfire in Utah history burning in Central Utah, the air outside has become practically unbreathable. These two factors have made me reluctant to let the kids go outside to play. That and I’d also have to make them put something on instead of underwear. Which just seems like too much work right now. Sheesh.

You would think that between the Cartoon Network, Every Gaming System Know to Man, and the Interweb at my children’s disposal there would be no room for boredom in this house. Oh how wrong you are! Happily my children react to boredom the same way most kids do, by either 1) whining till my ears bleed or 2)beating the living crap out of each other. It’s been more 2 than 1 lately, which leaves me feeling like nothing more than a glorified referee. The problem is they seem to enjoy the fighting and wrestling up to a certain point. You know, it’s all fun and games til someone loses and eyeball. Or a testicle. Or a clump of hair from their head. You get the idea.

It seems like Badger, living up to his name, generally begins the fighting by pushing, kicking, or jumping on Leo. And Leo will passively take it and laugh for a while, but grows tired and delivers a punch with 7 year old force to his 5 year old brother. And then they roll around on the floor in a ball of furry, punching and kicking like mad. This is usually where I come in and attempt to break it up, but that only seems to last for a minute, and the whole cycle begins again. For hours and hours. All day long. And more. Inevitably someone ends up crying, and I have to wash my hands of the whole thing because I TRIED TO GET YOU TO STOP ABOUT A THOUSAND TIMES AND YOU WOULD NOT LISTEN, FOR SHIT’S SAKE.

Sunny usually steers clear of these fights, but because of her extensive Tae Kwon Do training, when she does get involved it’s pretty brutal. In some ways I feel really good about her having the skills to defend herself, being the only girl with two rowdy brothers. But on the other hand, being a girl doesn’t give you the right to axe-kick your brother in the nards even if he was provoking you. Potential suitors, yes. Brothers, not so much. When she is a dating teenager I fully expect her to knife-hand boys in the neck who try to go past second base. But I would rather she find a different way to deal with her brothers fighting than to potentially ruin my chances of having grandchildren someday.

Honestly, I love having the kids at home. I miss them when they are gone at school. But I think that missing is a good thing. It makes me appreciate my time with them more. And they appreciate each other more too. This year Badger starts kindergarten, which means I will have three deliciously lonely hours to myself every day. I’m looking forward to those hours. And I’m not. How will that time change me? I’ve had a kid around 24/7 for the last 9 years. I’m not sure where I go from here. And I’ve got about a month to figure it out.

Until then, let the fighting commence.

Dear Danica,

While laying in bed, sick as a dog with symptoms similar to that of kids recent Walking Pneumonia, DO NOT take cold pill with hours old coffee from mug on your nightstand. You may begin to sneeze, subsequently spilling coffee all over your brand new WHITE comforter cover from Ikea.

Thanks,
Danica

For the last month or so I have been laying in bed every night, fighting to overcome all my imagined stress, and figure out a way to fall blissfully into the nothingness of sleep. I’ve come up with quite an awesome coping strategy, I lay there and write posts for this blog in my head. They are all funny and insightful and irreverent…all the things that have made me the famous blogger that I am. And every night as I finally drift off I promise myself to remember that post, and for THE LOVE of Peter, Paul and Mary, I will post it in the morning! (this is the part that is making you feel good. I am writing to you guys. A ton. Sweet Jesus, a ton.)

I think by now you get the part where, by the time the harsh light of the sun and the sound of the alarm comes my way I have completely forgotten the post I wrote in my head the night before. It’s gone, and I am back on planet Earth, where I have imagined that NOTHING IS GOING RIGHT FOR ME. And where I know how to be dramatic, for shits sake. I realize that the obvious solution to my forgetfulness is to have my laptop actually IN FRONT of me when I am writing. But that would just be too easy, wouldn’t it? And I’m hell bent on making life as hard as possible for myself. It’s my mission statement: Be miserable or die trying. And of course, never forget to be dramatic.

The kids are finishing school this week, and we are headed off on a sweet vacation south of the border. And this little vacation is causing me more stress and anxiety than I have had in ever so long. Vacation! I should be excited and relaxed and motherfucking stress free, at the prospect of vacation. I swear to Bob, I wish I had a new brain.

I kinda feel better now though, after writing this and actually typing it out and all. It feels good to get it out there, my craziness. I read somewhere that depressed people shouldn’t isolate themselves, because it only makes things worse. Sadly isolation is one of the things I know how to do very well. So thanks for being there for me readers, all 10 of you, even if it’s just passively ‘being there’. Thanks for being my support system when I actually take the time to put my fingers to the keyboard. Now, don’t y’all feel better?

So I’ve mentioned several times that I have been painting different rooms around my house over the last few weeks. It’s like a disease, this painting thing, and it’s now in my blood and I can’t stop but DEAR GOD! I want to stop. And the funny thing is I didn’t ever, I mean never ever, think I would be the person that paints there entire house with every room a different color.

Last weekend I was talking about the painting, because it is so obviously the only thing I have in my life, and Chris reminded me of something really funny. He asked me if I remembered the state of our first house when we bought it. Did I? Remember? That house? How could I not!

The first house we bought after we were married was 1,100 square feet of 1970′s glory packed in a rambler with lava rock decorating the outside. But really the outside was tame compared to what lay inside. For one thing, the house was inhabited by no less than 7, and sometimes even up to 9, overweight adults. In 1,100 square feet. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms. Nine people. Nine very big people. Apparently to spice things up, because all those people weren’t enough, they had painted every single room a different color. And every single room had a different color and style of carpet, including the kitchen and bathrooms. And to top that all off they had used the space under the back yard deck as a garbage dump. I know, I know, that has nothing to do with paint, but I believe it speaks to the level of taste and care these people took with their home.

The first thing we did when we got the keys, besides change the locks, was paint the whole house in the same neutral color. Then we ripped out all seven different colors of carpet and put down some nice neutral carpet and vinyl flooring. And finally we removed about 25 garbage bags worth of junk from under the deck. We spent the next four years in that house, making no end of fun of the previous owners and their tastelessness.

Do you see the irony people? I lived here, in our new house, four years before I became so bored of the neutral walls that I snapped. And so I’ve been painting. Each of the kids rooms different color. The bathrooms a different color. The kitchen, dining room, living room, basement, ALL IN THEIR OWN COLOR. My God, I have become those people! The ones I made fun of. The ones with no taste. That is now me. Please no one look under my deck. I’m afraid of what you’ll find.

If there is one thing about my life that I frequently regret, it’s my complete inability to deal. Or, maybe more accurately, the way I chose to deal with things that are overwhelming to me. I like to hide. I deal by not dealing, which any adult can tell you is totally stupid and won’t get you anywhere.

Lots of times when I was growing up and I couldn’t deal with school, socially or academically, I would just be sick for a few days. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this method of dealing actually made everything worse and more stressful because stuff doesn’t just go away, it compounds. It gets WORSE, so much worse than if you had just fucking dealt with it in the first place. Sheesh!

I would like to think that this is a lesson I’ve learned and a behavior I no longer engage in, but if I thought that I would be lying to myself in addition to hiding from life which makes me even more pathetic.

Anyway, I wish I was going somewhere useful with this, but I’m not. Last week I was still doing painting projects around my house, and being depressed, and taking Sunny to the dentist to get an $800 appliance to help her stop sucking her thumb, and being depressed, and worrying about my cat who is licking herself bloody all over her body and the potential vet bill, and being depressed. And I’m on medicine people. What good is the stuff if it doesn’t work some of the time? I’m not sure.

I think I’ve snapped out of my little episode of hiding and depression though. I had a really nice weekend. My friend Susan gave me some really good tips for things I can do at home to help my masochistic cat. I got my hair done for the first time in months, but I have to say I’m somewhat scared about what was done to it. The sun is out, the weather nice, and I am alive and present.