The Fabulous Fifties

Over the past few years, I've found myself in a bit of a rut.  Physically and emotionally speaking!  The sleeping condition got worse, and as excited as I was to get my disability determination, I've been struggling with finding "purpose" in my new non-working life.  Along with a lack of focus, I got a little um, self-critical I suppose.  I found myself wondering why anyone would want to read about my life, or lack thereof!  For someone who sleeps most of their life away, what on earth could I have to offer to the world at large?  The answer to that has begun making itself clear!  ME!  I'm one in a million.  For all my flaws and shortcomings, I'm not so bad.  If I was a recipe, I'd be a doozy!  One part crazy, three parts psycho, seventy two parts sleepy, four parts loyal, two parts lovable, a tsp of sexy after 50, and a lot of spices and such!

The answer to this lull I'm finding is not trying to force worth, but finding it where it already exists.  I have value even if I'm the only one who sees it.  Obviously I'm not the only one, the kiddo is still amazing and loves her bat crap crazy Mom, and the Hubs is still sticking around after almost 26 years, so there's that.

Where did blogging come into the past few years?  Well, it didn't.  I lost something along the way, and a few times I tried to force a "comeback" but I wasn't ready.  I'd lost so much already, I think that deep down, I was scared I'd be rejected, or even worse, ignored.  When you're hanging onto your self-confidence by a thread, it's hard to hand the scissors over to the interblogs as a whole.  I know, I know, I wasn't being fair to the few who were nothing short of AMAZING to me, but oh well, reason isn't always a strong suit of mine.

Speaking of the kiddo, she graduates on May the 8th.  I can't even tell you how excited I am about that.  I've been thinking about the upcoming year in our lives and one thing we want to do is let her take a year off so we can just spend time together without any other interruptions.  She's been in school since she was 3 and now almost 20 years later, her school career is coming to an end and we're going to make the best of it.  She'll be starting a design blog, so we'll have blogging time together where we can work on our respective blogs and share knowledge and hints and fun and games with each other and our readers (I HOPE!)

With all that said, I turned 50 last year and well, this blog is about nothing if not aging, or trying NOT to age specifically, so that will be my focus in the future.  I'm not changing the name or the subject matter, not even the look and feel of the blog, I'll just be picking up where I left off and making this something that I can do with the kiddo as long as she's here and it'll be something for me to do if or when she eventually flutters out of the nest!  She swears she's going to stay home until she's 30, and then build us a house together, so here's hoping for that.

Let's make this happen shall we?  Let me know if you're still here!  ROLL CALL!!!!!

And thanks for all the fish.

I'm not sure, but maybe making my comeback during the premier of Sons of Anarchy might be questionable at best.  I'm no Gemma, but hey, at least someone out there is aging gracefully right?  One day maybe I'll be able to rock a pair of jeans and some leather boots like that woman!  So that was an awkward intro huh?  I feel like I'm way out of my depth here, and hoping it's like riding a bike!  I've missed blogging.  I've missed writing in general and I've pretty much given up that I'll ever be able to write anything more substantial than a poem or a blog post.

I've learned a lot about my sleeping disorder in the past year or two and even though I'm still positive about it, I'm willing to accept my limitations and that focus I've talked about before has gotten the best of me.  That's not to say I'm down or depressed or all negative about it, nah, I'm too blase about it to be all that.  It's my life, for better or worse, and I'm going to make the best of it.   Always.

With that out of the way, I'm going to try this again.  I'll probably never be one of those bloggers that eeeeeveryone loves and visits daily, I'm too unpredictable for that, but I'm going to do what I can, what makes me happy.  I'm going to write when I've got something to write about, share with you my crazy, sometimes out of control life, the exploits of cats and kids and husbands and yes, the crazy cat lady too!

I won't overwhelm you with details right now, I've gotten quite a bit done on the stuff I wanted to work on around the house, somehow or other the kiddo has become a college senior, hopefully I'll be able to share some really fantastic news with you soon (news that we're waiting to hear about, so hopefully it'll be fantastic anyway, we're hoping), got all my hair cut off, went to my first Nascar race and have become a certified fangirl, and yes, I turned 50.  There was nothing graceful about it, but I didn't kick and scream either.

I will say I've missed you guys.  You know who you are.  I hope you believe me because all you've got is my word to prove it.  I'm a little daunted by this to be honest, I went back and read some of my old posts and hey, I'm a little bit funny.  I don't remember being that funny so I was surprised and a little shocked.  Hopefully that's au natural so I won't have to try and some magic writing humor will sneak out and I won't have to stress about it.  I guess we'll see huh?

Welcome aboard, and if you're still here, thanks for sticking around!

Me and the Kiddo (not fangirling, but melting.  It was HOT)

Donna!

What's on Your Mind Wednesday.

Really?  I'm not sure the world is ready for this, but Tanya over at A Taste of T inspired me.  So it's all her fault. Besides I need some fun in my life today because cat litterboxes are calling me and that is so my least favorite chore in the entire house.  Four cats pooped enough, but since it's 18 degrees colder than a well diggers rear end outside, I suckered up and there are ummm, twelve?  fourteen maybe? cats in our house right now.  Hubby says that's why they have fur.  I think they're still cold and need someplace warm to hunker down.  They agree with me by the way.  So with that said, and before I go to explore poop mountain (not to be confused with Candy Mountain which is much more magical and even has a magical leopluridon) I shall explore what's on my mind for your amusement.

• I should really get my makeup case out of the car and let it thaw
• I hope we're going to get the snow they're calling for tomorrow
• I need to visit Poop Mountain
• Thinking about Poop Mountain the words Veni, Vidi, Vici come to mind.
• I wonder if the ribs are going to be edible
• Crap, I forgot to turn off the crock pot
• My cow slippers are dying.  They have -le gasp- holes in the toe.
• Why is there an empty basket in the middle of the living room floor?
• Matchboxes always say "Strike on Cover".  Isn't that obvious?
• My cat has eye boogies.
• If I were a fairy, I'd have a knoll.  A big one.
• Without mushrooms cuz they're creepy.
• Happy Bunny is my hero.
• I should go back to bed where it's warm and read a book.
• I can't take a nap because I'm going to Poop Mountain.
• I'd rather be going to Candy Mountain.
• If Candy Mountain was real would it still exist or would people have eaten it?
• They make miniature dogs and miniature horses, why can't they make miniature cats?
• Miniature cats would poop less.
• I need tea.
• I'm hungry, but I don't want anything I've got.
• We're so screwed this month.  Wonder if they'll shut off the power when it's subzero outside?
• Anthony thinks my house is pretty.  I like Anthony.
• David thinks my house is a hellhole.  I hate David.
• I'm not going there today.
• I'm going to Poop Mountain.
• Now.
• Soon.
• Maybe.
• What the hell is a magical leopluridon anyway?

If I'm  not back by nightfall, send help.

Oh Noes!

I'm sicky!  Again.  Ugh.

Not bad though, but that's why I was feeling so icky yesterday I think.

On the plus side, I did get the rest of the decorations up, I got the trash ready to take to the dump, I got the bed made, did some Christmas shopping for my mother, got the youngling picked up from work, cheated on dinner and stopped at BK, fed the neighbors cat, AND got cat food!  As much as I wanted to crawl in the younglings' water bed, I resisted and actually felt pretty accomplished at the end of the day when I crawled in to my fresh newly made bed and promptly passed out.

Unfortunately, that's when I decided that I was sicky.  A cold or maybe bronchitis left over from being sick as a dog earlier this month.  I went to sleep great, but woke up sometime in the middle of the night having as asthma attack and attempting to cough up not one, but both lungs.  Nose stopped up, achy, congested, icky.

Today has been a little bit better, got some errands run, got the youngling from school and to work again which is making me wish she could drive even though I'm having nightmares of 900 car pile-ups with her as the cause.  I did not however, go back out into the cold to freeze my arse off while figuring out how come only one third of the outside tree is lit.  Our neighbors will just have to deal for a while.

I wrote my post for my other blog, and got around a wee bit there leaving some love on my blog besties pages, so I'm going to try to do more of that when I'm finished here.  Oh and I'll mention it here since I did there too!  I've got three guest bloggers lined up for the first week in January when my bestie is here visiting, so if anyone is interested, let me know!

Tomorrow the youngling has to take her ACT test at the school, so it's another early morning for the Mama Kitty.  I'm gonna so go back to bed though and hiberate after that.  No school, no work, she's heading to the evil, horrid, terrible boyfriends house, or so I'm told now.  Who knows.

So I guess that's all for the day, thanks for all the comments and lovies from yesterday, you guys are so totally awesome it's ridiculous!

Until next time, Toodles!

So Many Thoughts, So Little.....

Time?  Motivation?  Desire?  Waking hours?

I don't know, maybe it's just the snow this morning that's making me giddy and about as cognitive as a WallyWorld employee.  This will be Lesson....umm....hell I don't know, a lesson about me for all you who are just getting to know me.

I love snow.

Like fat kids love cake.

Like pervs love porn.

Like dogs love licking their butts.

Like TSA employees love breasts.

Like Jeffrey Dahmer.....wait.....no.

Anyway, you get the picture.  So yet again this morning I'm aaaaaall over the place.  I've been finding so many incredible blogs and reading what you're writing and your lovely comments have all validated my randomness, so in a way it's all your fault.  Really.  I'm serious.

So what's today?  Sunday?  I think?

Kiddo goes to work at 2 today so I have an extra hour.  Was still up earlier than I wanted to be though.  Naps lately have been plagued by that "Oh shit, I've still gotta (insert chore of your choice here) before I go get the youngling!"  Hate it when that happens.  I try to sleep through it, but it just keeps poking me in the back of my eyelids until I haul my rear outta bed and pretend to do whatever it was I was thinking about doing.

It's hard to focus when you've got kitten cats who are seeing snow for the first time.  They go outside and you can actually see the "WTF!" look on their little faces!  Almost as good as the ever popular snow cat tossing.  Don't worry, if we get any snow you'll see that too.  If Peta comes knocking?  You haven't seen me.  I love my babies, even if the hubby is harboring evil thoughts about them.

I've been mopping my kitchen floor for three days now.  By the time I get done, I'll need to start over again.  Told the hubby last night if it takes me this long to clean every room in the house, we're screwed.  I'm just really not into it.  The floor needs replacing so it doesn't look beautiful even when it's spotless.  Oh well.

I will say that I did some other stuff I put on my list earlier this week.  I've got more than two boxes of stuff packed up to give away.  I cleaned the windows in the kitchen and cleaned out the buffet.  Not on my list.  Blame lack of focus and random acts of housecleaning for that.

Haven't touched the laundry though.   There's SNOW outside and damnit, you can't see it from the closet!

OH OH OH, I started my daughter's zombie Barbie.  Bought an el-cheapo Barbie at WallyWorld yesterday and stripped her and painted her ummm....zombie color.  Ripped her clothes up and when the ground thaws she's gonna get dumped in a hole for a spin or two.  I still need to do some touch up painting, she just looks too damn happy to be a zombie.  Mattel has some seriously happy doll designers if Barbie's face is any indication.  Hubby was laughing at me because I was wondering what's inside her arms and legs to make them bendy, and if she'd go up in flames if I tried to burn the edges of a severed arm.  Decided I'll take a flame to her over the kitchen sink.  Just in case.

Still no window fires so we're all good on that front.

Have any of you guys got Christmas tattoos?  I was thinking last night about putting a little Christmas mouse somewhere.  Who am I kidding, I can't afford ink.  That would rock though, admit it!

I still want to take pictures of the hubby's and youngling's favorite ornaments and post them here.  I was thinking about doing a "growing up" theme for my youngling.  We've got ornaments for her from Bambi to a wooden hedgehog.  Yes, I have a hedgehog on my tree.  He's kinda cute actually.

I want to do one of those picture challenges I found earlier today!  It's got a theme, like "In my house" and "Time" and stuff like that.  It'd be fun!  Oh and I still need to load all the pictures youngling took in her bathroom onto my photobucket account!  And take a picture of her with her new bunny since the yearbook staff is doing a page of Seniors and their animals.  She's already in the tattoos and piercings page.  And the jobs page.  And the art page.  Hopefully the "Students recently accepted at VCU with a full scholarship" page too.  That'd be wicked sweet.

Well, if you're still here, you deserve a cuppa something, so go grab it, but first?  Leave me lovies to make me happy!  I love lovies!  Maybe on my other blog I'll make some sense today, but maybe not.

There's SNOW on the ground, and it's melting fast so until it's gone, this is the best its gonna get!

Much lovies!  Toodles for now!

Inspiration of the PinUp Variety

Starting a new blog is like giving birth.

You get this idea in your head, and then it scratches and claws its way out of you until you've got something you're proud to put out there to show the masses.

I'll remind you now that the proper response is to "Oooooh" and "Ahhhhh".  Thank you very much.

With that thought in mind, I thought I'd share some of my inspiration for the look and feel of this blog, well and I love the art so it works.

I'll be using some of these pieces to change the feel of the blog for certain events and seasons so check back often and enjoy the show!