Telling Myself: to live HERE

Do you ever get so busy, you forget you had a goal for the day? Maybe in all the craziness of real life, the To Do list was updated to the To Do Tomorrow list. I've been feeling like that for a while. Come to think of it, probably since I was sixteen years old, which feels like both forever ago, and only a few days past.

On those nights when I didn't collapse into bed and immediately pass out in exhaustion, I'd lay there trying to slow my brain down by making a mental list of the things I'd do tomorrow, then wistfully imagine my magical home once I got things organized. My children would be well behaved, the dryer would never gobble another sock, I'd cook fabulous meals from scratch out of thin air, things would be simple, relaxing, and beautiful.

When I was in college, I thought it'd be so much simpler when I had a career. When I was working, I thought it'd be so much simpler if I could stay home with the kiddos. Here's the shocker: now that I'm home with the kiddos, life is as complicated as ever. Maybe even more so, as I'm responsible for more than just my own self.

The commonality to all this, besides the busy craziness and wishing for a calm existence? In this case, it would be me. My commitments made, to do lists of both the necessary and completely unrealistic, the mental picture of an ideal home and family life . . . in all these "should do" and "could be" things I've collected, what did I do with myself? What did I do with that handsome, wonderful man I married and sweet, angelic little babies? Well, they'v stuck with me, though all my craziness. Lately I've been reminded (or been noticing all the blatantly obvious hints!) that one can do wonders with what one has on hand. That life slips by far to quickly, and I've slipped back into the mindset of spending every day wishing it was Friday instead - wishing my life away.

So I'm giving up all those aspirations. I'm going to sit on my duff!   Wait! That's not where I'm going with this rambling :)

I'm re-evaluating all these illusions I've adopted of what an ideal life, home and family would look like. I want to scrub away the nonsense and get down to what is true, right, and good. I'm reminding myself of the things that I need to be and trying not to include one of the stereo types tagging along. Right, I'm human, and I'm sure at times this will be an abysmal failure. Will I be a better me? Wife, Mom, Friend? I hope so.

One day I'm going to reread this post with aged wisdom and realize what a goof I am/was. That's okay, I'm going to do the best I can with what I have now. :)

"i love to learn" or "i'm still bitter about that D I got eight years ago"

Btw, I love to take classes at our local community college and have been blessed to get to take them because my mom foots the bill (thanks again, Mom!) 

I signed up for Econ 201 - Macroeconomics this semester. I was nervous. Maybe I'd gone too far this time I thought to myself while looking over the text for the class. WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD I HAVE THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?!

I've been told I have a rather "different approach to education" by one of my professors who was a mentor during my English pursuits years ago, and I decided to take it as a compliment. My college career has been what I like to call eclectic. Classes I picked because they sounded fun to take, that may or may not have applied to any degree I was perusing, include Finger Spelling, News Writing, Survey of World Mythology, Introduction to Allied Health...

I've enjoyed nearly every one of my classes, with a few exceptions like an Intermediate Aerobics class (back when I was so sleep deprived I thought that yes, I could get up at 5AM after waitressing until 2AM and still be coordinated enough not to knock someone else out in class two days a week). A rather fortuitous bout of bronchitis got me out of that class without too much guilt!

Another class that still really gets me riled up is the only class ever that I received a D in (I'm considering taking a break to throw up and come back, since I'm admitting a D out here... on the INTERNET, but I'm going to post it AND I'm not going to loose my lunch over it, AND it won't result in a 'ghost post'!) Any way, the class was "Computer Operating Systems" which I took the Spring semester just after the big Windows XP release. Given the course title and description in the college catalog, I was under the impression that we'd be learning the highlights and inner workings of some of the major operating systems (OS). Boy, was I ever wrong! It turned out the course was two lectures on the fact that there were OS (primarily focusing on DOS/Windows . . . someone else bringing up the idea of Unix was quickly stopped - that's not what this class is about.) Then we were on to the real agenda of the class: an in depth look into what I now know would be my personal pit of despair, WINDOWS 2000. 

I'm going to give you a brief list of my excuses of why I didn't do well in that particular class:

  • the course title and description were a complete LIE! 
  • Windows 2000 was an outdated OS at that point, and though I can see why it was handy for a college or businesses to use for their huge networks for a long time after that . . . that's NOT what the course description said the class was about!
  • average amount of sleep I was getting per night was 3 hours. Often just stayed up since it wasn't worth risking sleeping through work over 3 hours of sleep. . .  
  • the floppy disk that I turned in the final project on died (as they notoriously do) so all my teacher got was an error when he tried to access the project and he couldn't accept a late redo of the final at that point
  • the love of my life then lived just under 2,000 miles away and so I chose to distract myself with too many commitments. (next time I'll just sleep more, really.)


Realistically, going to college full time along with working 70 - 80 hours a week was one of the more ridiculous things I've done. That's right, along with racking up a bunch of credit card debt at the same time, it's on my top three "young and dumb" things to do. I ended up blaming everything on that ridiculous class, which in my self-caused sleep deprived state, was perfectly logical, and rather than try to make some effort or change classes, I stayed, out of "principle" and got a D.


The dread I feel when someone mentions Windows 2000, or when I have horrifying flash backs to that class, is what struck fear in my heart (or maybe just my stomach) after I started looking over the daunting text I have for Macroeconomics. Vowing not to have a repeat of the notorious OS class, and logistically unable to switch classes, I went to the first class last Monday night. Guess what. This class is going to be cake. It comes down to four tests, none using unreliable floppy diskettes. It helps too, that I now an only slightly sleep deprived full time mom.

Here's my point, which I don't think I really made yet: learning, even when the task itself was an abysmal failure, can be worth it. And while I'm not trying to attribute my D to my mom, or the fact that I was home schooled, I do mean to say, thank you Mom and Dad. I still love to learn, enjoy an academic challenge,  and can't imagine life without all the books and sometimes, learning the hard way.

misuse of the word "ironic"? I don't think so!

Just after I made this post here is what comes up.



Oh Google, you are GOOD. Maybe TOO good.




And if you have a word that really is better than ironic to describe this, do share! ;)

haha I'm BACK!

I'm back. I haven't really been anywhere that interesting (maybe fun and very addicting though. . . ). I just took a left turn at FarmVille and got lost in CityVille . . . and well, I realized when I hit the level cap in CityVille within a few weeks of it's release (with the help of some GREAT new friends in Facebook, btw!:)) that I had a problem. Yeah, I'm going to admit it here, I love jumping out of reality and getting lost in a virtual world - especially when it is "FREE".

You know what's great about having limited funds? It saves people like me from wonderful, wonderful places like Azeroth, people like myself that *just*can't*stop* . . . /sigh

So here I am, deciding to try to get back out that melodramatic, fabulous, pessimistic (ok maybe not the pessimistic) self that used to attempt to write and occasionally sketch designs. I am letting go of my awesome city at the current level cap of 60, and promising myself that *it*will*be**OKAY** to let go of my farm just six teeny-tiny levels shy of 100. Yeah, I'm bragging. Yeah, I'm having trouble letting go.

I imagine this sounds a bit silly. And just as a disclaimer - I'm not dissing all those fantastic people that play those games on Facebook . . . I'm just over using ellipsis again and really enjoying it!

HELLO WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DESILOU FREEBUSH IS BACK OUT ENJOYING THE SUNSHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!