Where in the effing hell have you been?

I'm back. I know I was gone a long time. I went through a lot that I'll probably touch on in some ridiculously bizarre post that I hope makes you laugh or at least smile. But here it is.

I had a psychiatrist once tell me that I had to hide my mental health problems. I looked at him and wondered how the fuck does one pass off hiding in a corner, hyperventilating and sobbing uncontrollably as something that a regular person does occasionally and there's no reason to worry. 

I fired him soon after he brought my husband in because I disagreed with him. I found someone better now. Someone that treats me like a person that matters. Someone thatI  can tell that I'm one more bad day from giving into the monkeys in my brain that say I'm not worth it. Someone who will celebrate with me when I talk about how I managed to get out of my home and travel. I'm not hiding this anymore. Hiding it made me feel like I should be ashamed that my brain didn't work the way normal peoples brains do. I deal with chronic daily depression, anxiety and panic attacks, some PTSD and some agoraphobia that has gotten worse. and that just the mental part. If someone cold help me figure out the chronic pain, auto-immune issues, and random passing out that would be like icing on the cupcake of weirdness that is me.

If you can guess, this is about me, my life, my brokeness, my strength, my terror, my courage and the fucking bizarre shit that just is part of trying to adult with a teenager and a hubby that works at home. 

I'm not a writer, I will apologize to those of you who are. My syntax will be wrong. I might have a typo or two, and my tone is more conversational than storytelling. But iII promise to try and make you laugh occasionally. I'll try and be as open as I can, without giving all of myself away.

Today is a day that I matter. So do you.

Art on the Green or Crap on the Grass, you pick

One of my favorite events of the year in this area is an event called "Art on the Green"In conjunction with AOTG, there's two other events happening the same weekend all within walking distance of each other - if not within the tolerance limits of a 7 year old boy-The Taste of the Coeur d'Alenes and the Downtown Sherman Street Fair. All of which lend themselves to several irreverent nicknames-crap on the grass/junk on the lawn/shit on sherman. This is why they do not let me name events. They don't even let me describe pictures for publications at work. Their descriptions are things like "Bob and Sue stroll along the picturesque beachfront enjoying the shade of the 100 year old evergreens that line the Dike Road." When I write captions as space holders it ends up more like "Two dumbasses walking the wrong way down the street under a bunch of trees wearing what could only loosely be described as appropriate clothing." This is why they have writers and I just have to put the pictures and the text in some sort of readable format. Yay, graphic designers!

What this says about me marrying a writer? Apparently it wasn't just for his charming good looks and his ability to wash dishes.

Back to Art on the Green. This year I found this beautiful little glass bauble that caught my eye and wouldn't let it go. The artist was patient enough to explain to Boybat how he made these solid glass globes that had layers of colors and shapes in them that seemed to defy the physical space it occupied, but in Boybat terms. It was obviously a ploy to free me up to look around. 10 minutes I stood there staring in this glass ball before I put it down and walked away. Didn't get more than two booths away before I told Joe we had to turn around and buy it because it needed to be in our home. After the "incident"-where another piece of art wanted to come home with me, he said no way, and I pouted about it every year we went back and saw that artists work get out of our price range-he just turned around and led the way back to the booth. It's like having my own little universe.

I've had a few "finishes" since I last checked in.

Finished up Lizzie Kate's Snowman. I obsessed about this pattern for a while. It was the colors that made me want to stitch it, but I was "eh" about the subject matter. I don't like to do "seasonal" patterns because I like to put my finished pieces up on the wall year round. Finally told myself, "Hell with that, I can put whatever I want on my wall." Hence the second finish, Shepherd's Bush Green Snowman. They both have buttons I still have to sew, but that's not happening 'til I'm ready to have them framed.

Halle-freakin'-luja, I got Lo How a Rose done and did a little dance  that was mainly me pumping my fist in the air singing "Suck on it you f'ing project from Hell, I win!" Unfortunately, boy bat was in the next room and informed me that those were bad words.

I'm pretty sure that he's going to end up being the kid in Catholic school that teaches the other kids all the curse words and I'll be getting a call from his teacher asking if I was the one who taught him to swear in whole sentences. Oh well, it's a family tradition.

Eclectic is good

Stitchers are an eclectic lot. Eclectic is good. I love the ones who actually appreciate geekdom and laugh at zombie jokes. The fun thing is, you can't always tell who they are.

At a stitching group I go to once a month, there is a very nice lady who I would have pegged as the kind of woman you would imagine hosting dinners with the right ratio of guests, know where the silverware belongs at a place setting (including the funny little lobster fork), and knows exactly what Miss Manners would do in every situation. I was completely wrong! She got all the geek movie references, laughed at the bizarre jokes with the rest of us. I'm pretty sure she said "damn" a couple of times.

Bad on me for doing the proverbial book cover judgy thing.

Stupid Sun

Stupid sun being all warm and inviting, teasing me with its happy sun rays, enticing me to go outside and not blog.

At least I've been stitching while I'm out there. I've shocked a few neighbors who apparently never thought of me as a stitcher. You'd have thought I was slaughtering bunnies in the nude when they see me working on a cross stitch out on the steps. 

The Demon Bean

How to tell your coffee habit is out of control?

Your son is making coffee shops out of Legos with little Lego baristas and a drive up window.

I will no longer be bringing the little vice barometer on my morning mocha run.

After I get my mocha, I'm going to head out to the patio–spent yesterday finding the edges of it after I ignored the creeping grass slowly covering the bricks all last summer– with my latest project and curse the wasps that are trying to build nests in the patio umbrella.

Baseball and little boys

Back in May, I bought tickets to see the Spokane Indians (minor league team) this weekend, forgetting that summer in the inland northwest starts mid-July.

Like most little boys, Boybat is impervious to the elements and wasn't phased by the rain or the cold. I, on the other hand, was in competition with my dad as to who could string together whole sentences (quietly) using nothing but curse words to describe how stupid it was for us to be sitting there in the rain.

Fortunately, Grandma Ginny was there to explain what was going on on the field, taught him how to read the scoreboard, remembered to bring a blanket and bought him a stuffed team mascot that he hasn't let go of yet.

He loved the whole experience–the game, the crowd, the food.

After I defrosted and dried out, I realized I had fun there, too. We'll go again.

Not til mid-July, though.

DINKs and garage sales

It’s been so nice out that I haven’t been able to make myself sit down and write this past week.

What I have done tho' is get the "seasonal" yard work almost finished and as a bonus, get the garage cleaned out.

What the hell were you doing cleaning the garage you might ask? I couldn’t find the damned weed sprayer and when I did see the tiny hint of it, I couldn’t get to it. 

Grrr!

Only because it was necessary, I cleaned and organized the garage that has been wallowing in basement cast-offs for the past year. By the end of summer last year, there was a path from the garage door to the inside door. If you needed to go anywhere in that maze of crap, you would need to tie a rope around your waist to find your way back (I exaggerate, but not too much).

I blame the DINK (Double Income No Kids) era of mine and Joe’s relationship. We had disposable income then and I had a home décor bug up my tuckus. When the whirlwind of destruction-otherwise referred to as Boybat-was toddling, a lot of that stuff went into storage and never came out. It made it from upstairs closets, to the basement, to the garage and is now destined for a garage “why would someone want to buy this” sale.

Mind you, I’m not having a sale, I’m commissioning my neighbor to tack it on to her sale, while I cross stitch outside on my lovely patio enjoying the sun and telling Boybat to quit trying to hit the neighborhood cats with his suction cup bow and arrow set.

One year later and a person less

I lost a person and all I can say is, it’s about time! When I say I “lost a person”, I mean I’ve lost over 115 lbs. this past year (which would be a skinny little person, weight-wise). Hot freekin’ damn!  

When we drove to Wisconsin last year, we were able to drive through Yellowstone and see a few sights. When I compared last year’s photos to this year’s photos, I did a little dance that no one should ever have to see (sorry, Joe).

A year ago, I barely wanted to get out of the car to do the hikes and found myself sitting on a bench waiting for my guys to finish their walks.  Last week, Joe and Boybat had to keep up with me on the hikes!

No! I dont want to go back to real life!

Where to start? I know, VACATION!

We just got back from a week at Yellowstone National Park. It was fantastic, beautiful, amazing. I figured out this week that I’ve been there 7 times now and still haven’t been able to visit all the places that I want to see. In all the times that I’ve been there, I’ve never seen it with snow on the ground–until last week. It snowed everyday we were there with accumulations in some parts of the park being over two feet in one evening. It was stunning to drive into there with the snow in the trees and the blue sky.
 

My friend, Stacy, calls it my “Happy Place." She knows me pretty well (which means that I should move to another town where people haven't realized that I'm sarcastic for a reason). 

For as much as I really dislike being outside, nature in general, Raging waters, and walking around in blizzards, when I’m in Yellowstone, life is good. Joe has accepted that when we retire we’re going to volunteer at the park so we can stay there in the summers. I think he agreed because I’m a much more pleasant person when I’m there.

I did get some stitching done when there was down time in the hotel. Picked out some different colors for the Dandy Dreams pattern, with brighter colors.
 

Did I already mention that I finished Lo How a Rose? I’ll put pictures of it up soon.
 

Artists Point in the Yellowstone Grand Canyon

Am I the only one who saw a dragon in this rock?

Holy crap! Look at the snow bank on the road side

Norris Geyser Basin with Boybat

Coming into the park

Please forgive me if I go on about my vacation, I’ll try to keep it down to just a few posts.

Close, but not perfect

My morning conversation with Boybat on the way to school.

Boybat: Do you love me?

Me: I love you to the sun and back. 

Boybat: Mom you'll burn up before you even get to the sun.

Me: OK, I love you to the moon and back.

Boybat: There's no air on the moon.

Me: I love you from here to school and back?

Boybat: Close, but not perfect.

Me: Alright then, what would be perfect?

Boybat: From here to Africa and back.

No stitching today, I was out enjoying the sun and how the neighborhood comes alive when the weather turns good.