Just another day in Paradise

This is an oft repeated mantra around the radio station.

I wonder if everyone feels that way at work.

Does every phase of life follow the same pattern? Honeymoon stage, settling in, bored, resigned, burnt out, cynical?

Or is it just too much sugar in our diets?

Do clowns become bitterly sarcastic after a while? Nuns? Pediatricians? Motivational speakers?

Does Oprah walk around wondering where the last twenty years have gone, thinking she should have been an opera singer?

Can you tell my chiropractor went on vacation and Mike is back?

Best overheard conversation at a fire scene

"If I had a pager, I'd come more often."

"That's not what she said."

Anatomy of a misunderstanding

misunderstand: v.t. & v.i. To understand wrongly; misinterpret.

misunderstanding: n. A mistake as to meaning or motive.

I'm beginning to realize how subjective people are. (subjective: adj. 1. Of or belonging to that which is within the mind and not subject to independent verification. 2. Expressing very personal feelings or opinions. 3. Highly influenced by the emotions or by prejudice). And that includes me.

I pride myself on being thoughtful and fair, not jumping to conclusions, looking at all sides of a situation before forming an opinion. This week I was hit smack in the face with exactly how easy it is to lose all of those good intentions. And how I'm not nearly as fair minded as I liked to believe. It's not easy to look in that mirror.

When words are spoken, or written, they mean something to the speaker. They're sent out into the world, filtered through each listener's, or reader's, understanding - which is subject to that person's mental/emotional state, experience, and thought process. By the time those words get through, they can mean something completely different than what was originally intended.

All it takes is the breakdown between the original intent and the ultimate interpretation for a misunderstanding to happen. It's a wonder we communicate at all.

We can never really know what another person's motives or thoughts are. All we have to go by is what they say or how they act when they're around us, and even then we have to realize that what we perceive is filtered through our own, personal little universe.

What a trap it is to think we can. And - once again - by "we," I mean me.

I have to constantly remind myself: "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgement you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again." Matthew 7:1-2.

It's so easy to assume meanings and motivations, and even easier to spew our assumptions like a poison water sprinkler.

It's not so easy cleaning up the mess.

Top Ten Things I Learned While Mowing the Back Yard Today

1. Ants don't like it when you run over their home with a lawn mower.

2. Mowing the back yard in a two-piece swimsuit, while being a popular spectator event for neighbors, is not good protection against angry ants who have been launched into the air after their home was run over by a lawn mower.

3. Wet flip-flops are not the best yard mowing footwear.

4. There is a difference between a self-propelled mower and a regular push mower, and mine is NOT self-propelled.

5. Aerobic system sprinklers don't care if you're mowing the grass.

6. I am not in good shape.

7. It is possible to drink a 24 ounce bottle of water in one try.

8. Lawn mowers don't like frisbees.

9. Swing sets, hammocks, and trees suck.

10. All I want for Christmas is a riding lawn mower.

I got skills

Well, it's been an eventful week.

The kids are back in school. We still haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet, but it's coming. And by "we" I mean "me."

For some reason my internal clock runs about 10 to 15 minutes behind real world time. I can manage to get at least two of the kids to school on time, but there's always the third one that gets the short end of the stick. So far it's been a toss up between Joseph and Katie, because I drop Savannah off first.

The first day of school I dropped Katie before Joe because I was running a little late and I thought his school started at 8:10; Katie's starts at 7:55. He barely made it. Turns out his school starts at 8:05 and evidently school clocks run slightly fast, which sucks in my world.

The second day I dropped Joe before Kat. We were still running slightly behind and Katie was kind of pissy about it - until my road handling skills got her there just in time. After taking a few corners on two wheels and nearly getting us t-boned by an 18-wheeler, she was just happy to make it to school alive.

The third day we would have actually been on schedule if it hadn't been for the train on the way to Joe's school. I ended up taking Katie first, then back tracking to drop Joe. My driving skills that morning earned a phone call from our local assistant fire chief, reprimanding me for doing 40 through the school parking lot. Excuse me, but I'm trying to get three kids to three different schools on time. It's a challenge just to get myself anywhere on time.

The fourth day was okay because I think everyone in Cleveland overslept. Traffic was light, so we made it.

Friday sucked because I had to drop everybody off and go back home to finish doing my hair. I love being a woman.

I can't wait for Monday.

Raking the floor on a Sunday afternoon

I was born without the gene every other woman in the world has in spades. The shopping gene. I hate to shop.

I spent nine hours yesterday shopping. With three kids. On the weekend before school starts.

Shopping sucks even when the stores are clear, I have plenty of money, and everything is on sale 90 percent off. Yesterday was... not my favorite. And Mike the Migraine went with us. It was great.

Today I decided my kids should start the school year off with a clean room. Not bandaid clean like they do it, but deep clean like I do it.

Have you ever noticed how a house collects things? Stuff just piles up until it starts to take over. You can plow through and get rid of tons of junk and think your done. But six months later the piles are back.

My house is a garbage man's dream.

In the kids' room I made it through the closet and under one bed - filling two huge garbage bags -before I quit. I had to rake the floor under Joseph's bed to get everything out from under it. I couldn't even face Katie and Savannah's. What we can't see can't hurt us, right?

Savannah was thrilled. She told Sean Austin, "You've got to see this! We can run in our room!"

Now I just need to hit the other eight rooms and we'll be back on track, figuratively speaking.

For about six months anyway.

Blah-blah-blah

I am, for the most part, recovered from my Topamax experience. I didn't realize how much it affected me until this first week without it.

It's nice to be able to concentrate at work without having to try so hard. And I'm not as emotionally wrecked as I have been - another big plus. I feel serious though, and not much like chatting it up lately.

The kids go back to school next week. Now that their summer break is over, it's sinking in that I missed it. They're excited about not being stuck at home doing nothing all day. I'm dreading the early morning routine. It's much easier just getting myself up and ready than getting all four of us (and possibly Nathan) out of the door on time. Yuck.

So, the chiropractor seems to be working. I'm not wanting to cry every five minutes. The kids are going back to school.

And the beat goes on.

Climbing Mount Washmore

Laundry sucks. And it multiplies like jack rabbits on a Saturday night.

My favorite is finding the load that was in the dryer shoved into an overflowing basket on the floor so a mystery person could put another load into the dryer.

The identity of this person will never be known because he is evidently invisible and has no other proclivities aside from undermining my laundry efforts. Ask any member of my family.

Now the clothes are hopelessly wrinkled and mixed with dirty ones. They will have to be re-washed. And of course the planet would stop rotating on its axis if anyone but me ever folded clothes.

We are officially in day 3 of Topamax withdrawal.

My big day

I visited several old friends today, ate sushi and Italian food, and had a wonderful, lengthy, thorough, full body massage.

It was a good day.

And I only cried twice.

Headache update, part 2

I had my "adjustment" today in more ways than one, but we won't get into that.

No acupuncture yet because the chiropractor felt "we would best be served by spending our time with muscular manipulation." Sounds great, huh?

It was my first day without Topamax in about two months. I felt like crying a lot. And I felt a little crazy, but I made it through the day. I'm very fortunate to be surrounded by people who genuinely care about me enough to put up with my crap.

I hope so much I feel normal by Monday.

I'll have someone feel me and let you know.

Headache update, part 1

I know, I've been slacking. But you know what they say. If you don't have anything nice to say...

Mike the migraine is still here. I got tired of griping about him, so I haven't, but he's still here. The thyroid tests all came back as normal as can be expected for a lumpy, bumpy thyroid. The doctor didn't think the headache was related to it, so the next step is to go to a neurologist. Yippee-skippee.

I don't want to go to another specialist just to be told it's a migraine and get put on more medication that makes me crazy and doesn't really help, so I decided to try a chiropractor/acupuncturist.

My first visit was Tuesday and my first treatment was yesterday. He's going to treat me three times a week for four weeks and we'll go from there. He thinks it's a tension headache brought on by reverse curvature of my upper spine (I saw the x-ray, it's true) and extreme tightness in my shoulder muscles. If it will get rid of the headache and I can get off the drugs, I don't care what he wants to do.

Of course, I haven't had the acupuncture yet. I might sing a different tune laying on a table with needles protruding from my body. Maybe quite a few different tunes - I'll be getting great reception.