Freefall?

This is my last night of mandatory writing for a while. If I get my tattoo finished Sunday, I plan to post about that, but there will likely be no post tomorrow. This is good, since I will be cleaning and cooking all day tomorrow and will have a house full of people tomorrow night. I am a crazy person.

I really don't know what to write about. I was thinking about a post to explore why I don't fit in at church. Then I was thinking about a post that recaps the month or one about how I am not qualified to be a mother. Or a post about how I used to be a better writer than I am now. Those things will have to wait.

I just read this article about sleep positions. Studies are so interesting to me. I almost failed statistics in college (damn you, stats and what you did to my GPA!), but I think I'm at least a little 'common sense' smart. I often question studies and why the researchers decided to conduct them the way they did. Just this week while watching an episode of 'Mythbusters' where the team was trying to determine if cursing made something less painful, I was reminded of this. They did a test where the subjects had to hold their hand and forearm in a vat of ice water until they could no longer stand the pain. The first time they said random, pre-selected, non-swear words. The second time they let loose with expletives. Of course, they were all able to withstand the freezing pain better the second time, thus supposedly proving that swearing somehow lessens pain.

However, I would argue they haven't actually proven swearing helps you deal with pain unless they had switched between swearing or not-swearing first. Sometimes, when you know the level of pain you are actually going to experience you are better able to brace for it. When I had the original tattoo on my side, I was completely unprepared for how much worse it would hurt than the one on my back. I could barely catch my breath. Yet, when I had it added to, and then later retouched, I was much better able to tolerate the pain because I knew what to expect.

So, when I read the sleep study and found that as a 'Freefall' sleeper, I should be "brash, outgoing, and are very uncomfortable with criticism," I wondered how they came to this conclusion. They have the "very uncomfortable with criticism" part correct. But... seriously? What kind of person likes criticism? The brash and outgoing part is completely not me. I am far too concerned about the consequences of my actions to be brash and far to tied to the glasses-wearing bookworm in my head to be outgoing. I wish I had more information on how they conducted this study!

I really have little else to say about this, other than I dislike being pigeonholed based on how people think I should be or act or react. I'm a person, not a study. A person who needs to be a better person and better mother and better writer, but I'm doing the best I can. Is that ever enough?

Almost There

As I was pulling in the parking lot this morning, I noticed a gaggle of geese blocking off some good spaces. It was really all I could do to keep myself from mowing them down. It would have been in self-defense. Really.

Why am I bringing this up? Oh... right. Because I'm getting ready to write another post about tattoos and I thought maybe if you wanted to read something else you could read this instead: one of my favorite posts.

Starting this past Wednesday night, I began a marathon extended weekend of craziness. Dinner with my sister's family that night, swim lessons tonight, family night at church tomorrow night, Gap Party Saturday, and........ getting my tattoo finished Sunday! I think.

I've thought I was getting this tattoo twice before. I'm trying to be optimistic that this is actually going to happen. I really, really can't wait till it's finished. You know what else I can't wait to be finished? This week. And this month. *sigh*

Third-of-Life Crisis, Perhaps?

I'm writing this post without any regard for the few people who may end up reading it. It is likely that tomorrow morning I will wake up with and be gripped with writer's remorse. Of course, by then it will be too late. This will be out there and someone may have already read it. And judged me. Ay-yi-yi.

Today I hit a wall. I finally managed to make myself finish some things I really needed to do at work. I accomplished something and felt pretty good about it for about twenty minutes. Then as I was driving home all these things just started stacking up in my mind until they became too precarious and toppled over.

I just sat there, examining all the pieces and didn't even know what to do with them. No, my life is not in shambles. I'm just having a serious self-esteem crisis. There is absolutely no good reason for this. Maybe it is just one of those things that keeps my vanity in check. Maybe it a third-of-life crisis. I really don't know. All I know is that I just wanted to break down and cry.

In attempt to salvage what is left of my pride, I won't go into all the details. Let's just say that all the contributing factors taken individually would not have caused this episode. I usually don't care if people just stop talking to me for no reason or do things (probably completely on accident) that make it seem like they don't care at all about something that means a lot to me. Clearly though, all of these things stacking one on top of the other, put a big chink in my armor. That is unpleasant.

I'm really not sure what there is to do about any of this. I'll be fine after a while. Eventually some of these things will fade away and be replaced in my head with other things that don't make me feel like I can't make anything turn out right. I think now would be a good time for me to go to bed and dream that will happen soon.

Swimming Lessons

A lot of times I feel overwhelmed by all the stuff we have going on. That bad part is, compared to a lot of people, we don't have that much going on. Sure, we have two kids and we each have a job and various other activities throughout the weeks. But our kids don't play sports or do cub scouts or take music lessons. We haven't been having to run the kids around to lots of extra-curricular activities.

That is about to change. We signed the boys up for swimming lessons and they start this week. Way back I wrote this post that explains how I feel about swimming and these are lessons where parents have to be in the pool. So in addition to me not liking swimming, we now have a regular activity to run the boys to every week. Yay.

I think it is fitting that swimming lessons are our first foray into kid activities. I am not naive. I know this is only the tip of the iceberg. Even though we will limit the number of activities they do once they start school, it will still be non-stop running. I'm excited to see what the boys will want to do as they grow up, but I think for Ryan and I it will feel a lot like trying to keep our heads above water.

Trying

This is about the time in the trying to write every day when I get discouraged that I am trying to write so frequently and only a few people ever read what I write. Believe me, I love that several of my friends make an effort to read whatever I manage to type out, but sadly for them most of what I write about and is stuff I've already discussed with them. My posts are just crazy recaps of things I've already said out loud or hashed out over instant message.

I know there are many ways to increase blog traffic, such as participating in certain posts on certain days and linking back to the original blog. There are many other similar ways to do this, but none of them seem very "me." I've never really been much of a joiner. I really just want people to read my blog because it's witty and interesting.

I realize it would help if my blog were actually witty and interesting, but in my mind I get points for trying.

Not Sure

I'm not really sure what I was thinking saying that I would write every day. I think I've taken more "breaks" this month than anything... writing way too many single-paragraph posts because I can't come up with anything decent. Real life just gets too consuming sometimes. There is laundry to fold and dishes to wash and carpet to vacuum. There are conversations to have and friends to see and kids to raise. Oh. And my full-time job.

Many days it is really difficult for me to make myself focus enough to write down all these things I need to write about. And on the days I make myself really write, the result is often disappointing to me when I go back and re-read. I don't really know what to do about this. But at least this post is more than one paragraph.

It's Settled

About a week ago I sort of read this article about a girl who had decided to take on a different adventure every week for one year. I only sort of read it because it was a very long and not particularly interesting article. I read the first paragraph, skimmed the next few, and lost interest. Aren't you glad to be reading this? Me boring you with a blog about a boring article? Stay with me for a minute. (Or don't. I'm going to finish this post either way.)

So, back here I wrote that I was going to find something of importance to do. And all week I've been trying to think of what organization I can work with or where I can volunteer and sometimes take the boys too. Then something reminded me of that article I sorta read and I thought maybe I could do something similar, only with volunteering. And maybe do every month instead of every week since volunteering usually requires some amount of planning and I do have a full time job and two kids who are my sole responsibility on the weekends.

But once a month doesn't quite seem like enough. So I've decided that each week for at least the next six months, I am going to do something to help someone. Although I'd like for at least one of those weeks each month to be volunteering, it doesn't have to be volunteering with a group or organization. It just has to be something that helps someone else and is outside my normal realm of responsibilities. In fact, unless it is some crazy, out-of-the-ordinary circumstance, helping Ryan or either of the boys won't count.

So there it is. At least one time each week I will go out of my way to do something to help someone else. And yes, I mean more than just holding the door for someone or telling someone they have something stuck in their teeth. This has to be something I go out of my way to do. I know at first it will take some planning, but I am hoping that as my goal becomes more present in my thoughts, I will notice opportunities and be able to do fill my requirement without spending too much time on the planning part. I'd rather use the time for the executing part.

I will try to post from time to time some of the things I do. I already have in mind what I am going to do this coming week. I can't really give many details, but I know of someone who probably needs some help but who would probably never ask me. So I'm going to surprise her and help her anyway. I'm guessing that at some point this whole idea is going to be a huge challenge for me, but tonight I'm feeling really good about it. Let's try to go with the whole feeling-good-about-it thing for as long as we can, shall we? I think this may be just what I need to kick the last remnants of my Seasonal Affective Disorder/career issues and get on with my life.