Some weeks just leave me in limbo. Sunday rolls into a Monday without a renewed sense of ” you got this” and all of the sudden I realize I’m not doing anything different, essentially the feelings of being overwhelmed have immobilized me. If you don’t already know this about me, I tend to share it all, the good the bad and the ugly. Well here comes the underbelly this week with no shortage of depressions and anxiety.  I don’t know how to best integrate that part of my life with my blog. Numerous times I thought I needed a new site where I could expose myself in hopes that would exorcise the demons of distraction and fear. There was What Color Is My Carpet, which was to be a personal expose on clutter but ended up on the cutting room because I felt like I was hiding that part of myself from readers.  There was also Big Pocket World, about iPhone photos and the now debunked Where’s My Art that I started a year ago and did absolutely NOTHING with. Sorry Seth, I let myself down. It wasn’t a bad idea it was just another distraction from what I really needed to be doing all along was getting shit done. That is what I do, create new things that prevent me from finishing old things.

I realize that everything that happened last week is in direct response to seeds (or lack thereof) that I planted seasons ago. Just getting to that place has been huge for both adults in this house. When I sit in the middle of a room up to my ears in old paperwork, all I can do is cut myself some slack for everything I hadn’t done to prevent this day from even happening. No more should of, could of, would of. It didn’t happen. The End. So DO SOMETHING about it now.

Instead of getting into Breaking Bad on Netflix after work, I sit in here and I sift through. I make piles KEEP and TRASH. After that they get a general sort by year and then after that they get sorted once again gleaning anything tax related. The next step is to scan everything and pitch the actual paper. “I can do this,” I tell myself on repeat. I listen to the Liquid Mind Experience so the other half of my brain has something to occupy itself with while I do the mundane. I will check in with you on this space next month in the meantime send Adderrall. Did I ever tell you about the time I went on Adderrall? My husband still talks about those days, that I can’t quite recall, with such fondness. In a nutshell I didn’t react, laugh or talk much during that period, but I sure as hell got a lot done. Reminds me of a funny story I read last week on outsidevoice.

I instagram dinner with the caption along the lines of carbs good stress bad, in other words eating my feelings. If you want to make these you can find the recipe for chicken pot pies here. Its very simple and almost entirely from scratch, minus the rotisserie chicken and pre-made pie dough.

Wednesday my calendar reminds me that it is my neighbors 99th birthday. NINETY NINE! I think I am more excited than she is. We show up at dinner time with flowers and a balloon and end up busting in on there dinner. I take a seat next to her and she studies my face thanking me for the flowers, points a trembling finger at me and says I am trying to remember you. This is most lucid I have seen her in awhile and I think if I gave her a little more time she might have remember me herself. I remind her that we live two doors down, I am the house with the tall boy that used to show off with his scooter on her driveway. She remembers him and asks what happened to him. I tell her he has a car so no one really sees much of him anymore. She laughs and then asks me where I live again.

I have known my neighbor for 14 years. I have wanted to blog about her for just about that long. When I first moved in I was intrigued her was this woman in her mid 80’s living alone in this home who was gone a least a week or two at a time while she traveled abroad. ALONE! I would stand in her driveway and listen to her stories about driving to San Francisco hopped up on Coca Cola because as she said, “you know what was in it back then, dont’ you?” She recalled the story about a boss who saw her standing on a 1 cent stamp and scolded her for treating money like it was trash. She told me to look around that money was everywhere and if you weren’t careful you’d step right over it. She had retired after building a successful nursing school but no amount of money could take away the pain of losing a sister. I remember her showing me all the art and furniture from her sister’s apartment. Her home is full of photos of her with past presidents along with religious monikers and needlepoint pieces. Somewhere in the last decade dementia set in. She looks incredible for 99 but she can’t remember what she said a few minutes ago. Aging can be so cruel.

I am up early again. I am listening to back to back take offs this morning, wow the airport is busy. It must foggy, those kind of atmospheric conditions that allow the rumbling engine noise reach all the way back to the foothills. Our local airport is unique. You cant take off before 7:00 am and yo cant land past 11:00 pm, as I overheard a Southwest flight attendant say during take off… “shhhhhhh … we’re flying over rich people.” Neighbors pleeeeeeez you wanna hear some noise? Come lay next to me in bed at 10:45 when a 757 comes screaming in under 10,000 feet practically sheering off a few roof tiles all in the name of curfew.

Thursday night I have dinner with the lovely Kathleen from Ksugarandspice. We catch up on life, kids and compare notes on our current photo app obsession. I hear encouraging words about this series from her and I’m reminded I have people who like what I am doing. I’m grateful and genuinely happy to hear that some of what I am saying doesn’t make me look like a complete idiot aaaand its raining. Bonus.

Fast forward Friday morning. I don’t want to get into the why I’m here but I am and it gets worse before it gets better. Seems I suffered a bit of gastrointestinal distress.  I have only done the immune drip once, that was after a major dental procedure. I have a standing order with my naturpoath that I can get one of these about every other month if needed. For some reason my immune system can be a bit weak. Its not that I get sick all the time, I really don’t, but when I do its bad. Maybe I was having a mild panic attack to the idea that the flu is back. Either way I can’t keep anything down and Friday becomes a total write off. Ugh.

And speaking of illness my monthly time capsule email arrives in my inbox from Photojojo. Nobody needs to reminds me how sick I was then. Nobody. What a week, 5 days in my bed, sun up to sundown. I will never forget interviewing from that bed, a miserable situation only to be trumped by an emergency wisdom tooth extraction a few days later.  After that 107.0 reading my thermometer quit, apparently it doesn’t go higher. The next reading it just said: Hi, translation what the eff are you still doing at home.  How I escaped the ER that night I will never know. I still will not do a flu shot. No never, uh uh…. noooooo friggen way. My husband can tell you his nightmare about how he developed Guillain-Barre like symptoms within days of his influenza vaccination a few years ago. Our policy is eat to live, lots of nutrient dense foods, 8 hrs of sleep, hydrate, vitamins and the occasional In’N’Out burger.  Amen.

One year ago this week …. (I watched Titanic twice)

My friend Kimberly, I wrote a post about her a few year back after she came to my rescue in What’s in your wallet. Years later I still know how to coax her into swinging by for a quick glass of vino. This time I had a Girl Scout cookies too. I opened a bottle of wine and a box of cookies and she kept me company while I cooked dinner. I made Stroganoff for everyone. I was on the Ginger Ale and saltines plan.

This is how I decompress. Target run.

Alone.

I’m feeling the neutral palette, or maybe I’m just tired.

Lion king leggings and Ms. Pacman shirts? Hell yes.

the rest…  weekend my life is boring people booooring its more cleaning more laundry more paper work and no progress on either venue. I cooked a little bit. Superbowl was kinda a bust but I still managed to bust out some Cherry Cola ribs.

Hubs makes his famous Cesar, the one I married him for I always say.  I suppose I should include that in the recipe index too. We watch the Superbowl but seriously I was more excited about Bruno and that guest appearance on New Girl by his purple majesty Prince.

And that’s a wrap. whew.

Oh and I also finished Week 1 and Week 2 so I guess now it’s already time to start on Week 6 which ends in a couple days. Ouch. I was just going to reassure you that the wordiness should be abating soon but really after some very random (or not so random) encounters has left this weeks notebook chock full of anecdotes and stories. I hate to tell you this but … its just going to get worse.

I’m going to try to talk less and shot more in Week 7 because God knows I do not have THIS much time to just sit and yammer.

Right?

Right.