Subconscious Gone Awry

I had a strange dream last night.  I know, such a shocker, right?  In the dream, Clint picked up the ringing phone and began talking to someone.  As the conversation progressed, he seemed to become more and more agitated.  He finally shoved the phone in my hand and walked away, angrily shaking his head.  I put the phone to my ear and discovered it was Clint's sister.  She told me in a cheery, sing-song voice that her and her husband had decided that evening that they were calling it quits.  I was absolutely shocked.  Not only are they such a solid couple, but she had just told me that morning that they were planning to relocate to South Carolina when her husband finished school (that part is true).  I tried to ask why, or how, everything suddenly fell apart, but she wouldn't give me any sound reasons.  She just kept laughing.  I finally got angry and yelled into the phone that divorce was nothing to take lightly.  I told her that I know she's trying to put a positive spin on it, but this was a very big deal, and she needed to take it more seriously.  After several moments of me unloading on her, I realized she was no longer on the line.  At some point, she had hung up on me. 

Shortly after, Clint's mom came by and gave me a giant hand-made card that was the color of Pepto Bismol.  She said it was a condolence card, and that the whole family was signing it for Clint's sister as a way of consoling her about her upcoming divorce.  I opened it wearily and, not knowing what to write, started to look through the card to see what everyone else had written.  And then I noticed a huge mistake: Nearly everyone had addressed their condolences to me instead of to Clint's sister.  Teri must have miscommunicated, because the whole family seemed to think I was the one getting a divorce.  But what was worse was, some of the passages I scanned seemed to indicate that they felt happy about my so-called decision, with messages such as "You'll be better off," and so on.  One of Clint's cousins wrote that ever since "the bracelet incident," she knew that our marriage was doomed.  I had no idea what incident she was referring to.  I was just thinking how awkward it was going to be for these...divorce cheerleaders, for lack of a better term, once they discovered that their pep-talks were addressed to the wrong person.  I immediately called Teri and told her about the mistake.  I told her that everyone seemed to think I was getting a divorce, and she would have to clear up this misunderstanding and get a new card.  But she didn't seem to think it was a big deal, and wanted to stick with the pink card. 

At that point, I woke up. I instantly felt relief that I had been dreaming, and that I didn't have to start making phone calls to tell everyone, Hey, I'm still happily married!

Yeah, I don't know where this stuff comes from.  I try to bully my brain every night into dreaming of something closer to this: 

But instead I get extended family cackling about some phony divorce.  I need to figure out a way to whip my subconscious into shape.

Summer Bliss

When summer hits, I lose the will to blog.  I get caught up in recreational stuff, and somehow being on the computer loses its appeal.  But I'm really going to try to check in more often this summer than I have for previous ones, because I hate it that all of those memories go unrecorded. 

So here is my first attempt to check in when I feel no drive whatsoever for blogging....don't expect stellar writing skills or doses of witticism in this post, because, at the moment, I really have none.  I'm actually already thinking about the book I was reading that's beckoning for me to come back, so I'm probably going to rush through this. 

Summer is off to a fantastic start!  Friday and Saturday I pretty much spent all day--off and on-- at the movies.  Not watching movies, unfortunately.  That would've been a lot of fun.  But no, we were there because the dojo was doing karate demos all day, and Trin was one of the demonstration participants.  The demos were very cool.  Before every showing of Kung Fu Panda (which was a lot, since there were four theaters playing the movie), the demo team would pop out from beneath the stage curtains, much to the surprise of the audience, and do an energetic skit involving cool music, ninja moves, and Po the panda.  I loved being in the audience right before the demo started, because I knew that no one had any idea what was about to happen.  It's always fun to see their reactions.  This is the third time that the dojo has done this (Tron and Karate Kid were the previous ones), and we've gone to every one, but this was the first time Trin was invited to participate.  She had a blast during both days and took up residence at the theater quite confortably, since, let's face it, she practically lived there.  I, meanwhile, tried not to cringe too much at the fact that her diet for two days straight consisted of hotdogs, popcorn, and soda.

On Sunday we went to church, out to lunch, and then tore out the carpet from our new (but not-so-new) RV.  My parents recently gave us their motorhome, and I'm so thrilled about it, although with current gas prices, I'm not sure how often we will actually be able to use it.  The RV is old...an '84, I believe, but not as ugly as it could be for that vintage.  It actually looks very clean and almost new on the outside.  The inside is also very clean, but dated.  We decided right away that the old, brown carpeting had to go.  So we went to Home Depot and found a remnant of brand new Berber carpet for $75.  The remnant is enough to do two RVs.  It came out to about thirty-some cents a square foot--ridiculously cheap!  So on Sunday we tore out the old carpet, and yesterday Clint installed the new.  I was there to keep his iced-tea full and to lounge around on the grass and holler at him what a good job he was doing--you know, moral support.  ;-)  At any rate, the carpet brightened up the entire motorhome...I love it.  We also ordered a futon cover for the old worn-looking couch, and I bought some new throw pillows.  The last thing I want to do is change out the curtains, but Clint likes the ones that are there, so we'll see.  We're planning to take the RV out on a weekend retreat soon to Soledad Canyon, just to try it out, so I'll be sure to post about it.

Today Teri picked up the kids at 8:00 this morning for some learning activities at her house, so I took advantage of my alone time and sunbathed outside while reading.  I completely ran out of books to read the other day (I've finished seven now from my booklist), so I ordered several more from Amazon.  In the meantime, I had nothing to read.  In my desperation I went through Trin's library (the girl owns bu cu books) and found The Neverending Story.  It is a wonderful story so far--so much more in depth than the movie--but the only thing that confuses me is the book has 396 pages, yet the conflict is resolved by page 185.  This is also the about the same place the movie ends.  What exactly does the author intend to do with the remaining 200-and-some pages?  Anyway, after sunbathing and picking up the kids, I took them out to lunch, and then we went to the library.  Our city's library is awesome.  It used to be this tiny little structure with unsightly metal racks full of exhausted paperbacks.  But a few years ago they moved to a new location and completely reconceived the whole thing into this gleaming, modern utopia for book-lovers.  The kids and I chose several books each and sat at a table, reading, for who knows how long.  Then we each checked out our books.  I was worried we had too many (eleven between the three of us), but the lady informed me we could have up to thirty on one card.  Thirty!  Wow.  And Trin has her own card, so that's sixty!  Plus Elijah is getting his own card next week, so that's ninety!  Can you imagine?  There's no way I'll ever check out even thirty.  Honestly, I'd be perfectly content with just two at a time.  But Elijah reads much smaller books at his age, so he's the one driving my total up.

Teri is keeping my kids four days a week from 8:00 to noon for learning activities the first two weeks of summer (bless this woman!), so tomorrow I'm going to go to the movies and see Bridesmaids.  I've only been to the movies one other time completely alone, and I really enjoyed the experience, so I'm excited to do it again.  On Thursday, while the kids are gone, I'm going to sit at Starbucks for an hour or two and read.  I've always wanted to do that, but never could, because...well...kids don't like it when you plop your ass down in a coffee house for two hours.  But now I can!  I feel like I have this whole bucket list of kid-free things I need to accomplish these next ten days.
 
Considering I have no motivation for blogging, I am really rambling out of control, so I'm going to get back to my Neverending Story now before this becomes the Neverending Blog.

Meet Me Halfway

My sis introduced me to this song, and I love love LOVE it (I know, I love love LOVE every song, but this time I really mean it.  For a little while, anyway).  I can't believe it's been out for over a year-and-a-half, yet our radio stations never play it.  Desert radio stations suck.  I'd normally embed the you tube video directly on this post, but to appreciate the graphics, you almost have to view it on a larger screen (for some reason I can't get blogger to enlarge the screen).  If you decide to watch it, I have to warn you:  This video is ridiculous.  Black Eyed Peas must have been like children as they vied for their parts--

"I want to levitate on a desert planet!"
"Well I call dibs on riding an elephant on the moon!"
"I'm gonna wear a space suit and touch the sun!"
"Hmmm...think I'll be some sort of sexy goddess, lying around in a jungle...." 

That being said, I now have to confess...I can't stop watching this stupid video.  It's nearly obnoxious in its corniness, but so entertaining (except for the part where the levitating guy's voice gets all deep, like he's demon-possessed or something).  I just love the gorgeous space-scenery.  Plus Fergie pulls her role off with so much emotion, and looks breathtakingly beautiful.  I actually like the dude touching the sun too (are you marveling at how good I am with their names?)...the expression playing across his face just looks more convincing than the others. 

So, preposterously garish space-themed music videos...apparently my new-found guilty pleasure.

Onto Summer

Yesterday I concluded my last day of the school year!  I'm sure I say this every time, but the very last day of school always brings on a sort of bittersweet feeling.  On the one hand, it is an enormous sigh of relief,  knowing you no longer have to wake up at the break of dawn, plan lessons, grade papers, fight to capture and maintain the students' attention, etc., etc.  But on the other hand, it makes me feel sad that I will never be these kids' teacher again.  We bond with each other throughout the year and they start to feel like family to me.  Even the little crap heads that drive me nuts start to feel like family (ironically, it's always these same ones that end up visiting me three years later, too).

I started class yesterday by having an end-of-the-year raffle.  After that, we all sat down and watched a photo story of pictures I took throughout the year; everything from "Pajama Day" to "Crazy Hat Day."  I make one of these every year and set it to music; it always ends up making the kids cry.  After the photo story, we played games.  I ended up playing Uno, Scattergories, Twister (that one was pretty funny), and some charade's game in which you had to act out and sound out two completely unrelated things (the first time, I had to sing like a fairytale princess while creating a sculpture, the second time I had to toast a marshmallow while giving my Miss America acceptance speech).  Seventh period asked if we could do one big giant group-hug outside, so that's exactly what we did.  I know it's corny, but it was awesome.  It was the perfect way to end the year.

After cleaning up my classroom, turning in my grades and relinquishing my keys, I went to La Casita with Niecy and three other teachers to enjoy a few margaritas in celebration of the end of the school year.  The hostess, who happens to be the mom of one of my students, treated us to a round of shots.  I'm not sure what it was a shot of (pretty much burned all the way down), but that, along with my two margaritas, left me feeling very relaxed and pleasant.  When I got home later, no one was there, and I was feeling way too happy to be alone.  I finally found them at the dojo, where I stayed for awhile, just cheerfully chatting with people.  Today I was hoping that it wasn't too obvious that I was a tiny bit inebriated (doesn't "inebriated" sound so much better than "drunk"?).

Now onto summer!  I have lots of plans, but I don't want to list them because I don't want to set myself up for failure.  Gotta love that unwavering confidence.  I'll just write about things as they come and go.        

Safe to Land

What a fun, busy three-day weekend!  But I'm too lazy to write about it, so here's another pretty song.  This one is too obscure to have a music video, so unfortunately, it's lyrics only.

Melatonin: A Cure for Mania

Since I am such an insomniac, I tried a little experiment where I took sleeping pills for two full weeks.  I just wanted to see if actually getting eight to nine hours of sleep every night for a two-week period would improve my overall quality of life.  To clarify, it wasn't actually hard-core sleeping pills.  It was Melatonin, which is some kind of natural herb, I guess.  From what I understand, the human body is supposed to naturally produce melatonin on its own, but the herbal supplement is available for those who seem to not be producing optimal levels in the evening, thus suffering from sleep-deprivation.

Okay, so two full weeks of taking these pills, and here are the results:

On the upside, I got between eight to nine hours of sleep every single night.  I slept very heavily and uninterrupted.  Dogs barking (or sheep bahhhing) never stirred me awake.  My first time opening my eyes was always when my alarm went off in the morning.  Amazing.  I never thought that kind of sleep was possible for me.  Furthermore, the good nights of sleep seemed to make my moods more level during the day.

On the downside,  I had strange dreams every night.  When I awoke each morning, I was more tired than usual.  It took me longer to get going, when usually I can just jump right out of bed.  Some days I experienced very vague, slight headaches.  And even though my moods were more level during the day, I felt more "blah."  Yes, I didn't have any spurts of moodiness these last two weeks, but I didn't have any of my manic highs either; my insane spurts of unsolicited happiness which I have come to love.  I just felt so...normal and there. 

So last night, for the first time in two weeks, I decided to ditch the sleeping pill.  And of course, as a result, I was up all night.  But I jumped right out of bed this morning, instantly awake.  I had no headache, and went to work in a ridiculously good mood.  I came home from work and chided Clint because he was so tired and boring.  "Look at me," I bragged, "I've only had a few hours of sleep and I'm still going.  I'm not even close to being tired"  About fifteen minutes later I crashed on the couch.  I think Clint was in the middle of a sentence, but I couldn't even tell you what he was talking about.

Now I'm wondering if I should take the sleeping pills or not.  On the one hand, it's guaranteed sleep.  I need that so bad.  On the other hand, I feel like the pills actually mellow me out...they take my manic personality away. And I don't know if I want that. If I can't feel ridiculously hyper and silly one second and come crashing down the next, what's the point of that? I like extremes because we only have this one little life to live and I like to feel stuff.

Sorry if that was too deep.  Blame it on Melatonin withdrawals.

I Should've Got a Warranty

Lily is the worst weed-wacker ever.  She discovered that dog food tastes much better than weeds, so has been happily gorging on that instead.  To deal with this problem, Clint moved the dogs' food into the side yard last night.  The dogs are small enough to shimmy their way into the side yard between the gate and the wall, but Lily is too big, so it was a perfect solution.  Or so we thought.  Clint was coughing in his sleep last night, so I took my pillow and curled up in the office.  Just when I was falling asleep, I heard Lily bleating angrily.  She wouldn't stop, and I was worried that something was wrong.  So I woke up Clint and told him I thought something might be wrong with the lamb.  He went outside to check on her (I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled he was about this). Lo and behold, the stupid lamb was stuck.  She had somehow managed to get into the side yard (we have NO idea how), and she ate ALL the dogs' food (again).  But she couldn't get out, and was absolutely miserable. 

Here is a not-so-great picture I took of Lily earlier tonight (lighting was terrible and door is dirty).  Her and Kalzaghi were begging to come into the house, but I couldn't let them in because we just had our carpets cleaned.  That, plus the fact that she's livestock.