Guilt Trip

I feel guilty because I work. I'm at work more than I'm at home with the kids. Sometimes the kids are home alone because I'm working and the hubby is somewhere doing something.  But I feel guilty when I have to say no to something the kids want because I don't have enough money. Gotta work. I feel guilty because I'm a manager at a retail store, instead of an engineer, because I spent 5 years studying to be an engineer, and we'd have much more money if I was. I feel guilty because I'm a night owl and hubby isn't. So when he goes to bed, I'm not tired yet, so I stay up and watch TV or read or sew or write or play games on my phone.  When I have several opening shifts in a row, and I get tired early (because I'm not a morning person and getting up THAT early makes me exhausted), I feel guilty for going to bed when hubby stays up to finish a movie.  I feel guilty when I don't go for a run, because I know I should, because I need to exercise and take care of me. BUT when I go running, I feel guilty because I should be home doing stuff and spending time with the family. I feel guilty because my house isn't Mrs Cleaver clean. I feel guilty every time I look at my craft table because it's buried in half-done projects. Some of them for the kids, but they're too old for them now.

I am wracked with guilt day in, day out, no matter what I do or don't do. It makes me want to scream sometimes. I need to make if stop, but I don't know how.

Plaster on a Smile

Depression has a way of sneaking up on you and taking over all your thoughts.  It can take a perfectly normal thought, or a conversation or argument, or a casual comment and use it to turn you against yourself. And suddenly, every evil thought you've had about yourself, every rude comment from strangers, every insult, every unintentionally hurtful thing said to you...escapes from behind the wall you built up.  The wall that was supposed to hold all those thoughts and voices, and keep them hidden....from the world, from yourself.  And when that dam breaks, so does the one holding back the tears.  And you end up sitting on the floor, hugging your knees, crying uncontrollably, while thoughts like "you're fat and lazy" and "if only you were prettier, thinner, happier, better with money, smarter......." and "how could anyone possibly love you?" and "you do more damage than good" and "your family would be better off without you" play through your head, on repeat. 

Sometimes I do think my hubby and kids would be better off without me.  I've never considered suicide. But I fantasize about running away. Finding a place where I've never been and no one knows me,  dropping all contact with anyone who knows me now and finding a little corner of that place where I can live the rest of my life without screwing with anyone else's life.  Hubby could find someone prettier and thinner and fitter who loves to do the same things he loves to do, who loves to cook & clean and is awesome at budgeting & paying bills.  I would no longer be a bad role model for the kids. 

But they wouldn't understand. They wouldn't see things the way I see them.  All they would see is me running away. They would think I abandoned them, that I don't love them enough to stay.  The kids would grow up resenting me for leaving. 

So, I will dry my tears.  I will work at building that wall again, try to make it stronger than before. I'll stuff all the bad thoughts and evil voices behind it again. I'll plaster on a smile, and pretend that everything is ok.  And maybe, for a while, it will be.  But, I wonder..........how long it will last this time?

New writing exercise, and continuation of "A Mystery Unfolds"

Another random first line, to get the next section of the story moving along.  If you haven't read the first part yet, you can click here.  Today's random first line is "As she stopped to catch her breath, she looked back".  Hope you like it!


As she stopped to catch her breath, she looked back.  It was a habit she'd acquired during college.  Be on the lookout.  Keep yourself safe.  God knows there were enough creeps on campus to warrant her vigilance.  When she moved to L.A., it wasn't just a safety precaution.  It became a matter of life or death. Her first apartment wasn't in the nicest part of town, but it was cheap, and had a good solid lock on the door.  Constantly looking over her shoulder wasn't really necessary here in Clearbeach, but old habits die hard.  The crime rate in her hometown was practically non-existent.  The people saw each other more as family than neighbors.  Some had lived here their entire life and would no doubt be buried here.  When Kat left for college, her intentions were to get as far away as possible, and stay away.  She packed as many bags and boxes as she could fit into the back seat of her green VW beetle, kissed her mom and sister goodbye, put her foot to the gas pedal and never looked back. It wasn't that she didn't like the town, or the residents.  She loved taking her sister to the corner ice cream shop, being within walking distance of all her friends' houses and the beach, and she even enjoyed going to the town's summer barbecue that took place in the park every single summer.  But she always felt like she was missing out on something.  She knew there had to be more.  More what, she didn't know.  Just more.

Leaving her sister had been the hardest thing she had ever done.  But Jessi, even at 14, was small-town through and through.  She wasn't just content in Clearbeach, she was downright happy.  She knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life.....although, in Kat's opinion, Jess' simple and romantic ideas were unrealistic: marry her high school sweetheart, have a couple kids, teach elementary school until her kids made her a grandma, then retire and live happily ever after.   Kat chuckled at the memory.  Jessi didn't even have a high school sweetheart - hell, she wasn't even in high school yet - when Kat left town, and she was already planning her entire life with the poor guy.  When Jessi wrote to tell her about Cody, she almost felt sorry for him.  He had no idea what he was getting himself into when he asked Jessi for that first date. Over the next few years, Kat lost track of how many times she rolled her eyes when reading her sister's letters, full of mushy lovey-dovey this and that about Cory.

A year after Jessi's graduation, out of the blue, she called Kat, in tears.  She was crying so hard, Kat couldn't understand her blubbering.  Finally Cody took the phone and broke the news: Mom had died.  All the cigarettes she'd smoked throughout her life finally took their toll.  Kat hadn't even known she was sick.  She was immediately angry with her mother for not following through on all her promises to quit, but she grudgingly made the trip back to Clearbeach for the funeral.  It was then, over the course of the weekend, that she realized Cody was all Jessi had said he was.  He was the rock she needed to lean on.  He held her when she cried, he tucked her into bed when he realized she had had enough of the mourning visitors.  He even made her eat something though she had turned down others' offers to bring her something all day.  He took care of her without being pushy and without complaint.  He knew what she needed without her voicing it.  After the funeral, when Kat left for her home in L.A. she didn't feel bad for leaving her sister behind.  She knew she was leaving Jess in good hands.  She knew she was going to get her happily ever after.

The next time she spoke to Cody was when he called two weeks ago.  This time, it was he who was crying, he who was blubbering.  It took a good ten minutes for her to pry coherent words from him.
"Oh my god, Kat.......It's Jessi.......they just found her............she's dead."

Am I crazy?

Sometimes, I think it's a crazy idea.  Other times, I think it's a great idea and I feel an intense need to start, myself.  What am I talking about?  Prepping.  Like, stocking up on food, water and medicinal needs and learning to live off the land, kind of prepping.

Ok, hear me out before you roll your eyes at me and call me crazy.

I don't get involved in politics.  Heck, I don't even watch the news all that often.  I'm totally out of the loop.  I hate to admit it, but I am a deny-er.  If you just ignore it, it will go away and life will continue, with me stuck in my little bubble of happy ignorance.  I shrug off anything I hear from conspiracy-theory type people.  I do believe that some people can see something that the rest of us could easily explain, and see another thing that the rest of us could easily explain, and even though they appear to have nothing to do with each other, they put them together anyway, come up with some suspicious sounding story relating the two and BAM! A conspiracy theory is born, and spreads, and has the possibility of creating panic where there is no need for panic.

But,on the other end of the spectrum, being blissfully ignorant will be a BIG downfall should anything major actually happen during my lifetime.  Sometimes (like right now LOL) we don't have enough food to get us through the end of the week, let alone a month or a year.  We totally depend on modern comforts like grocery stores and restaurants, where food is available whenever we need it.  Need some meat? No need to hunt it yourself, just go and buy some.  Vegetables?  Who needs a garden when you can get a huge variety at the local grocer?  Got a chocolate craving?  Head to the nearest......well head to the nearest store of any kind, and you'll find chocolate somewhere. And like electricity to help cook our food, keep it fresh and to pump our well water to our faucet.  If anything were to happen , if SHTF (in prepper's terms) tomorrow, we would be S.O.L (I'm sure you know that one).

Do you ever get the feeling that something is going to happen?  That feeling of dread, deep in your stomach, that something bad is coming - you have no idea what, but you know you're not ready to deal with it?  And maybe nothing ever happens, and the feeling passes, and you brush it off.  Maybe.  Or maybe something DOES happen.  And you think "I knew it!  I knew something was going to happen, and it wasn't going to be good!" So maybe I've seen Hunger Games a few too many times, and watched too many episodes of NBC's Revolution - LOL - but I have that feeling sometimes. It comes and goes. Sometimes, I just stay in my bubble of ignorance and go through my days as if life as we know it will continue forever and for always, and we'll all live happily ever after.  But sometimes, like the last couple days, I feel like I need to get ready JUST IN CASE.  Just in case what? you ask.   I HAVE NO IDEA.  But the feeling is there, and the need is intense.

I don't want to go overboard.  I don't want to build a bunker underground and stock it with 5 years worth of freeze dried food, medical supplies and an entire artillery.  But maybe start stashing a little here and there to help us get by if we should ever need to hunker down and stay put for a couple days or weeks.  I've never started stashing stuff.  Partly because that blissfully ignorant bubble comes back, and I tell myself I really don't need to. Ok, that's probably the main reason.  But it's also partly because I wouldn't know where to put it all.

So, tell me what your opinion is on this subject.  Are you a hard-core prepper? Are you a blissfully ignorant bubble resident?  Maybe something in between?  What kinds of things do you stash?  Where do you put it?  I've read that some hard-core preppers are a little paranoid about telling others where their stash is, and what's in it - for fear of being attacked when the time comes that those supplies will be in high demand.  So if it makes you uncomfortable, you do have the option of commenting anonymously.

A Mystery Unfolds

Today's writing prompt was a "first line" meaning the random sentence had to be the first line of my story (I know, not hard to figure that out, right?).  I didn't time myself this time.  I started at work, but I was interrupted. I'm not sure how much time I actually spent writing this.  Some spots were written several times, since my Word program kept crashing and, of course, didn't save my work. Grrr.  Oh well. Here's the result of today's writing exercise.  My story starter was "Someone must have seen him because the police were at his door:"  Enjoy!

Someone must have seen him because the police were at his door. He thought he had been careful,  and timed it right. There must have been someone lurking in a dark shadow while he has visited the freshly dug grave last night.  They pounded at the door again.  Better answer it, before they break down the door.  His bike was parked out front, giving it away that he was home. He never went anywhere without that bike. It had been his brother's and he had inherited it when his brother was killed overseas five years ago.  He threw on a shirt and padded down the stairs, the 3rd one from the bottom creaking like it had done since he was in third grade.
"What can I help you with, officers?" he said as he opened the door. 
"We have a couple questions for you, son. Wanna invite us in?"
"Uh yeah, sure, ok," he replied, running a hand through his hair, which was already standing on end. It looked like he had been doing that a lot lately. Stress does that to a person. And when your girlfriend dies mysteriously, and the whole town starts pointing their fingers at you, it causes a fair share of stress.
He moved the laundry basket off the couch, and cleared the magazines off the chair.  "Have a seat gentlemen. Um, can I get you something to drink? I've got....um, I've got water. And a couple of clean glasses." He shrugged aplogetically. "Keeping up with the house chores hasn't been high on my priority list, what with burying Jess and all"
"We're fine, thank you. Let's cut to the chase, Cody. Where were you last night?"
"Last night.....when last night?" He could hear the tremble in his voice, and hoped they couldn't.
"Around 3am. We have a witness report of someone in the cemetery around that time. Going back to the crime scene?  I hear some criminals do that. Some sick need to relive the crime or something."
Cody was relieved and confused at the same time.  It wasn't him they were looking for. He had been back from the cemetery and curled up on his bed, drunk and passed out, by 3am.  But who was in the cemetery after him? And why?
"Officers, I may be a night owl, but I don't go lurking about the town in the middle of the night.  Last night, I drowned my sorrows in more beers than I'd like to admit.  Last time I saw the clock it showed quarter to one. Next thing I know, you're waking me up pounding on my front door.  As for returning to the scene of the crime, you'd have to find the actual criminal and ask him.  I didn't kill Jessi."  The two cops glanced at each other briefly before the older one pulled something out of his pocket.
"There was a crudely made stick cross on Jessi's grave.  This was hanging on it.  What can you tell us about it?"
He held up a long piece of red ribbon, tied in a knot like it had been worn as a necklace.  Hanging on the ribbon was a ring. Cody's heart stopped for a moment, then tried to jump right out of his chest.
"That's.....that's not.....possible!" Cody choked out.  It was the ring he had quietly purchased over a month ago.  The ring he had been carrying around in his pocket everyday, waiting for the right moment. The ring he was going to give Jessi when he asked her to be his wife.  The right moment never came, and now it never would.  The ring had been in his jeans pocket last night, as he stood over her grave and wept in the privacy of darkness.
"What's not possible, son?"
"That ring. I.....I bought that ring, last month. I was going to ask Jess to marry me. I never got the nerve to pop the question before..." He swallowed the lump forming in his throat. "Before she died. I've been carrying it around in my pocket. Yesterday....it was in my pocket yesterday. I put it....." He stopped. The blood drained from his face.
"Where, Cody? Where did you put it?"
"On the pillow, her pillow, beside me when I went to bed last night."
He looked at the cops, his eyes round with fright and shock.  Someone had been in his house, in his bedroom. As he snored, sleeping off his drunken stupor, someone had come in and stolen the ring, off the pillow next to his head.

A New Fun Project

I've been kind of letting any and all writing fall to the wayside. I like writing - and they say, to get better, you should write every day - but sometimes, I just don't know what to write about.  Sometimes, the ideas just don't come and whatever story or blog I've been working on just ends up stagnant.  So, I found this new app.  I simply open the app, it gives me a randomly generated subject, I set a timer for 10 minutes and just go. I've decided to share the results of these sessions with you.  I'm not sure how long I'll keep this up.  You know me, short attention span LOL Today's random subject:

"How do you feel about cooking?"

My first thought was "Um......ugh....how do I write for 10 minutes about COOKING?"  I almost hit the button again for a new subject, before I decided that was kind of cheating. So I started my timer and started typing.  Here's the result:

"How do you feel about cooking"
I guess you could say I like cooking.  Not the day-to-day kind of cooking where you're just making something quick and easy to feed the family, before getting the kids showered and in bed because they have school in the morning.  I like cooking for large family gatherings. The turkey's in the oven, the potatoes are boiling on the stove.  Pies and dinner rolls are prepared and sitting on pans, waiting their turn to cook. There's a glass wine or a bottle of your favorite beer (mine is Smirnoff Ice) nearby while you chop lettuce and your best friend cuts up tomatoes for the salad. Your sister is chasing the kids around in the other room.  I like the kind of cooking that brings people together, not just for a meal, but for celebration or companionship.  The kind of cooking that involves conversation and jokes and laughter. It involves cooperation and multi-tasking. You have to get the turkey out before it's too dry, and carve it up. And you have to mash the potatoes and make the gravy, but not too soon, or they'll be cold before the turkey is carved and ready. And don't forget the rolls! Putting them in OR getting them out!!! I forgot about garlic bread once. It wasn't pretty. It was a tad bit burnt. Well, really burnt. Okay, okay! It was actually ON FIRE! So don't forget about the rolls! But with the perfect timing, and a lot of help, it's like magic when the entire meal - steaming hot - is ready to serve and placed on the table. Everyone ooohs and ahhhs over the perfectly golden turkey.  There's happy chatter as everyone grabs a plate and digs in, buffet style.  Then, for just a minute or two.......we're all quiet, even the kids.  Because we all have our mouths full of taste bud heaven, and it deserves a moment of silence. 

Madison's Water "Fun"

Tonight, Madison (my 11-year-old) and I were going to do a girls night complete with home pedicures.  We got out our foot spa.  We have to heat water on the stove to have water that's warm enough for soaking our tootsies, so I told Madison to fill the tea kettle and put it on the stove, on high.  Next thing I know, she (and the kitchen) are covered in water and my son is standing in the kitchen doorway with our glass pitcher in his hand - minus its bottom. Ummm, whaaaaat.......?

Instead of the tea kettle, Madison had filled our glass water pitcher and put IT on the stove on high.  Well it didn't take long for the glass to overheat and **POP** the bottom broke off the pitcher and water exploded all over the stove, the kitchen floor, and Madison.  

We mopped up the puddle on the floor.  Then we used paper towel to sop up the water on the stove (it needed to be cleaned anyway LOL).  Then we opened the top of the stove to get to where the pilot lights are.  One was out.  Ugh.  I tried to just relight it, but....nothing.  So I turned on one of the burners, and tried again.  Not only did the pilot light and the burner light, but so did the area AROUND and UNDER the burner.  

EEEEEK!  I quickly turned the gas off again and everything went out.  I'm not sure if it was excess propane (is propane a heavy or light gas? Does it sink or rise in relation to air?) or if the water was just mixed with flammable greasy gross-ness of the under-stove.  

I can't exactly get a towel under there to soak up the water because the other pilot light IS still burning.  I don't want to start a towel on fire.  So I turned on the oven, in hopes that the heat from the oven will help the water to evaporate.  Then we can figure out the whole "water in the pilot light" issue once everything is dry again.  

Lesson here? Madison isn't quite ready yet to boil water without supervision.