Calgon, Take Me......Anywhere!

I've had it up to here! Isn't that how the saying goes? When the frustration level rises to more than can be taken, and you smack the edge of your hand against some region of your head (or higher) and start screaming? That's when everyone knows to back off and leave you in peace for a while until you can get things on an even keel again.

This is the time of year where I'm not sure if things will ever be even again. I'm inundated with pressures from from every aspect of my life and the end of the tunnel seems so very far away. The kids are being tested out the wazoo at school, so I can't even manage to get through a single uninterrupted week, let alone finish a unit on time. We should be halfway through the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird and I can't even get Scout off of Miss Maudie's front porch. The problem is, testing won't be over until May 15 and by that time we're a week from the end of school. I guess Odysseus will have to keep sailing because we can't get him home this year. (Let's not even mention the poetry unit I spent so much time creating.)

Then there is the family unit. The Princess is graduating this year. She is stressed. She is letting everyone know it. We still have senior band concert, senior chorus concert, senior prom, senior prom dinner (at our house), senior day at school and at church, tennis banquet, band banquet and finals. Have I even ordered graduation announcements? Plus, we are in the midst of fundraising for a mission trip to Brazil and when anyone mentions college, she freaks about "How am I going to pay for it?" Yep, she's a basket case. So am I.

I had two peaceful days of spring break. Then I got sick. Allergies kept me in bed and miserable so I had no chance to rest and relax before I had to jump back into the maelstrom. Plus, I continue the never-ending battle with migraines, in which I feel that if I gain an inch, I lose a mile.  Can I get a new brain, please? This one hurts too much.

Yes, this is a rant. Forgive me. I don't usually do this, especially in a public forum. I'm desperate for the break I have neither the time for, nor can I afford to take. So I will simply sit here and quietly and endlessly repeat a quote my aunt used to have hanging on her kitchen wall...

"One of these days I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. 

I've earned it. 

I deserve it. 

And no one is going to deprive me of it!"

Blue Toes and Bubbles

Spring is here. Officially. After the freaky winter we have had here below the Mason-Dixon line, I'm sure that I can say with perfect certainty that 99.99 percent of the population are glad it is. The other .01 percent are either carpetbaggers, weirdos, or people like me. Stuck in limbo.

Don't get me wrong. I like spring. The whole new life thing, the fact that I can get out and soak up some much needed vitamin D without dropping twenty-five pounds in sweat the moment I open the door, and the joy of being able to walk barefoot to the mailbox without either searing or freezing the soles of your feet completely off. Plus, I can paint my toenails blue again.

I paint my toenails all sorts of colors in the spring and summer. This includes any and all shades of blue, green, purple, and the deeper pinks. I do stay away from reds (too predictable) and yellow (too ugly). I like the odd colors, the unexpected ones. The ones that fit my mood at the moment and cause people to stop and say, "That's just downright weird." No one expects someone of my temperament and background and, let's face it, age, to have bright purple toenails. I like shocking people. Can you tell?

But you see, I like winter too. Not that I like being cold. I don't. I hate that part. It's physically painful for me. But I love being able to run a tub full of the hottest water I can stand, pour in tons of bubble bath, run everyone out of the house and be truly warm for a couple of hours. It gives me a chance to shut my brain down and really rest, if only for a little while. And it helps that I've got a tub big enough to drown a family of four all at the same time.

The problem stems from the fact that I don't paint my toenails in the winter and I don't take bubble baths during the warmer months. Hence the limbo. And I know most of you are having to reread that entire sentence, and you're thinking, "Well, that's just stupid." To explain. I don't paint my nails in the winter because I like to give them a chance to breathe (yes, finger and toenails have to breathe, look it up) and heal from being suffocated under layers of acrylic paint for weeks on end. It's called trying to stay on this side of healthy. As for the bubble baths, what southerner in their right mind would voluntarily submerge their bodies into near boiling water on days when the outside temperature is near boiling itself? That would be literally jumping from the frying pan into the fire, as the saying goes, and that truly is stupid. (And cool water defeats the whole purpose of a bubble bath, so don't even go there.)

But the seasons will continue to change and time will continue to pass so I will say good-bye for now to the long, hot soaks, and I will look forward with great anticipation to the multicolored rainbow that awaits my little tootsies. See you in the fall!