November

Wow, I am off to a great start on blogging everyday this month. Already missed Day 1. Oh, well. No prizes for me.

Life has been good in general, but a little rough around the edges. In addition to the usual financial woes, it's that lovely time of the month. I swear that Mr. J is affected by hormones each month the same as, if not more so than, I am. It's just joyous. Especially as it usually leads to the same argument we have every month. Like clockwork.

I won't bore you with the details, but it essentially boils down to my incredible lack of self-esteem. In many ways I am so much more evolved than my old 7-year-old self, thank goodness. But when it comes to my body image, I am still a shy little girl sitting by herself on the playground. When I think back to my kindergarten and first-grade self, it's just a very sad picture. And it's amazing how much those two years affected my entire life since.

But, as Mr. J so kindly points out, I am rapidly approaching 41 (ack!). I am not 7. I am no longer all by myself on the playground. I have great friends. I have a husband who adores me (except for when I'm wallowing in ancient self-pity).

So why can't I banish this shy little girl persona? Why do I feel the urge to say "no, no, no" when people tell me I am a good or pretty person. Where on earth does this come from? How did I even realize at the age of 6 or 7 that when my mom told me I was a beautiful little girl, I would think to myself, "She has to say that. She's my mom." Where does that come from?

These are the mysteries of life that I battle with each month. So this month's goal for the daily posting is to return to my search for the good in life ... not just the world outside but also my little world inside. Maybe one month of daily affirmations will slowly beat down this wall of negativity about myself.

Because, as the Junior Senator from Minnesota says, "I am good enough, I am smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."

p.s. Be sure to go out and vote today!

Gack!

One week in and I have already missed a day of NaBloPoMo. I guess it doesn't matter too, too much, as I missed Day 1 anyway ( because I didn't know about NaBloPoMo until Day 2). So no big prize for me. But still. I can't keep up this daily posting thing for more than one week? Typical.

I am not really devastated or disappointed at all. I had a fabulous weekend, even if part of it consisted of work on a Sunday. But that work began after I enjoyed my most glorious sleep-in, make-a-yummy-breakfast, sip-my-coffee-while-doing-the-crossword-puzzle morning (which extended past noon). Heaven! And so, so, so, so needed.

While I worked, the wonderful Mr. J mowed up all the leaves and spread them throughout the flower beds and into the future fruit "orchard" on the side of the house. Then he spent the rest of the afternoon building shelves for his shed (yes, it's our shed, but I really have no interest in it, especially as it was such a pain in the arse to construct ... I still haven't forgiven it for that).

Then a leisurely night on the couch catching up on shows on Hulu and knitting (well, I knitted, and Mr. J just watched the "tube," AKA my computer screen).

Now here it is Monday again, but it's not nearly as daunting as last week. Today I even have plans to squeeze in a quickie mountain bike ride and maybe another trip to the Y (twice in three days? Miraculous). And if all goes well on the work front this afternoon, I'll get to end my day concocting dinner. On the menu for tonight: miso soup with chicken and vegetables. Hope it's as tasty as the recipe makes it out to be. Then again, if I keep writing here and not working, we'll be ordering out for pizza. Better get busy.

A Quickie ... Really

I can't seem to help myself. I have every intention of writing a short, sweet blog post, but when I'm done writing, I realize that it takes several to many scrolls of the mouse wheel to get to the bottom of it all. Can I really have that much of interest to say? Actually, no. I'm just a rambler. I can't help it.

But today is really just a quickie to get in my daily dose of writing. I am burning the candle at about five different ends. There's the project from Hell (in this case, Hell is India)--a horrible, horrible book on soft computing and artificial intelligence (don't ask) written by three people who may speak English on a daily basis but who are not native English speakers. And it shows. If I have to change one more instance of "In this section, we would be discussing the issues of some or the other artificial neural network (ANN) technologies . . ." I "would probably be very much going to" throw my cute little laptop right out the window. But it's a paying gig, and I am the one who did not say no when they offered it to me! So, oh well. As my friend says, it's job security in these crazy times. Too bad said job security is making me crazy! Then the big geography textbook project is coming to an end, which means lots of little loose ends to be tied up by right this very minute. Add to that a short indexing project (due today) and then a quilting edit (due Friday, but I'm pushing for Monday), and I think perhaps I may have overextended myself just a tiny bit. Not to mention that I have a random group of women coming over tonight for a Lia Sophia Jewelry party that I have been shanghaied into hosting. (OK, so they got me with the $78 dollar necklace that I get for $15 just for hosting; but I still consider it a sneaky move on their part.) This, in turn, means I need to clean house (Mr. J has volunteered his services), scrounge up some munchies and vino (hallelujah), and actually make myself somewhat presentable (no more sweats and PJs for me tonight.)

But all of that doesn't stop me from going out to enjoy yummy diner breakfasts with Mr. J two days in a row. How I love me some bacon and greasy spoon coffee! Especially after pulling several near-all-nighters in a row. Besides, these days, it's the only time I have to actually converse with Mr. J; otherwise our conversations would consist of me thanking him as he changes out my caffeine IV drip. Oh, and speaking of bacon (mmmm), if I lived anywhere near Colorado, I would have dibs on this cute little piggy owned by my new buddy over at Little Farm. Growing. Yum! (sorry piggy)

NaBloPoMo

So I just realized that it's that time of year when bloggers go crazy and post a post every single day as some kind of challenge, fun, writing frenzy, something . . . . I have not participated in the past, and I'm not sure I'm participating now. We'll see how I do. Of course, I already missed Day 1. But that's because after the incredible festivities of Halloween night (such fun), it took Mr. J and I a full day on the couch, catching up on Netflix and Hulu, while munching on whatever easy food we could prepare and never once getting out of my robe or slippers to make myself more presentable (whew) to recover. I'm so glad he loves me for who I am and didn't try to "help" me recover from my crispy-around-the-edges feeling by pushing me out into the beautiful day that it was in order to haul my tooshie up a hill on a mountain bike or some such ungodly thing. Granted that probably would have been much healthier than our alternative. But sometimes you need a completely lazy day. Especially as this week I have, oh, I don't know, five horribly icky work projects! (Yippee.) Another reason I'm not sure how well I'll do on this post a post every day for a month thing. Oh, and I also love him because he sat through three hours of Lost in Austen with me, and actually found it entertaining! What a guy!

Finally, can I just say that daylight savings is being very good to me today. I just realized it is only 9:30 and I've already been working for more than an hour (usually, I'm just finishing breakfast and catching up on emails at this time of the morning).