sometimes life is just sad

The last 2 weeks have been odd. Last week, was just plain wacky. We had a furlough day (yay, less money!) last week; only I spent much of the day reading about the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I still am glued to the stories coming out the there. So, so sad. Japan is nation who is technologically advanced, more so that the US I imagine, however has brought to its knees by the earthquake.
Lance and I have friend who resides with Japan. He is safe, although I imagine not particularly comfortable. I wonder how close he lives to the nuclear power plant that is melting down. I hope he will be okay.
It is hard to see the pictures of people, particulary children and elderly, being scanned by geiger counters. I had the thought today of: put them all on a plane and bring them here! Such a bleeding heart, eh? However, my next thought was that we complain about taking care of our citizens here, so likely the plane would not get off the ground. Am I getting cynical in my old age? Or am I a realist?
I have been feeling restless, easily frustrated in recent weeks. Finding myself with little patience for people; particularly when i don't like their behavior. Am trying to not let myself become a total a-hole. Hence the blogging...

so much on my mind aka an update

Well, blogging regularly has not happened as planned, but I have read some good books, spent great time with my family and worked hard at work.
I have noticed over the past few weeks a improvement to my overall mood and energy level, which I am attributing to better weather and longer daylight hours. We have also elected to wait a year before selling and buying a place, mostly due to our decision to wait until fall 2012 to send Jude to kindergarten, which will free up some spendable income. I hadn't realized how stressed I was feeling about all of that.
Things on the home front are good. The kids are growing like weeds and are at the same time amazing/wonderful/challenging and exhausting. Definitely the hardest thing I do is parent, but parenting should not be something we just phone in, you know?
Our old cat started drooling like a faucet over the weekend. Turned out to have sever gingivitis and was missing 14 (!!!!) teeth. So, we suck as pet owners. She really needs to learn how to talk or something.
Work is wildly busy, and while I love what I do, I have found myself feeling overwhelmed by the numbers of people needing mental health assistance, which definitely outweighs our available personnel, time, and resources. Apparently, there have been suicides in the first month of this year than all of last year combined. So sad. We are living in a hard time.
People in the US are so pissed. Some with reason, some just seem to be whining. Everyone, including myself, is finger pointing. We are still economically depressed and things are not going as well as people would like them to. Improvements take time, but people feel impatient. I am getting tired of the insanity around it all.

starry starry night

It is colder than a witch's tit, as they say, in Walla Walla. Well, there are places that are colder, and snowier, and blizzardier, than Walla Walla. However, while it is cold, it was also a gloriously beautiful sunny day in Walla Walla. On my lunch hour I ran an errand downtown, and soaked in some sun. Vast improvement on last week's-croupy-toddler-missed-10-hours-of-work-2-doctor-visits-steriods-bizarre-terrible-no-good-very-bad-week. So, so glad about that!
Anyway, leaving book club tonite, I looked up and saw a sky full of stars. I saw the Big (or Little) Dipper! Clear as day. Well, night actually. You know what I mean.

Confessions of a former wanna be princess..

The guest on Diane Rehm today wrote a book entitled "Cinderella Ate My Daughter." The discussion was about consumerism in America, the outrageous popularity of Disney Princesses; hence the title. I found myself wanting to read the book, which I still may, however then remembered I am a mom of boys. One of whom also loves princesses, and has told me that girls are luckier because they can wear dresses and can be princesses. The enlightened mother that I am, I sympathized with the frustrations he was experiencing and tried to explain societal norms around gender roles, etc. I then realized I was talking to an almost 5 year old, and he had moved on to the next topic of the day: chocolate chips. Anyway, I remember want to be a princess as a little girl. Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles became engaged when I was a wee kindergartner and married just before I turned 6. I was enthralled with the fact her name was so similar to mine. Surely, this meant I was destined for royal greatness too! The hours spent playing dress up, coming up with elaborate stories about meeting and marrying a Prince; it was a good time. If I were a mother of a daughter, would I try and distract her from the subject of princesses, Disney or otherwise? Probably not. I am kind of a crappy feminist I guess)
As a parent, we all have an ideal of how we would like to parent and how we will never stray from that ideal, and would children will turn out perfect, amazing and brilliant. The best in the world, of course. I planned to make all my own baby food, never allow them to watch tv, have them listen to classical music exclusively, and no fast food EVER. Well, I made some baby food, but good grief I have a full-time job in addition to being a parent. I had to cut myself from slack. The longer I am a parent, which I am still a real greenhorn, I realize that all my ideal plans, while they would have been nice, would have just ended up sucking all my attention and energy. My children watch TV... in moderation. They listen to whatever music they enjoy (minus stuff not appropriate for kiddie ears). They have tasted the products of McD's (notice I did not refer to it as food). They are still alive. And pretty damn happy.
So, here I find myself the mother of 2 boys. I never imagined that particularly, but at the same time I did not necessarily picture myself with only daughter's either.
If they want to wish to be a princess, no biggie.
I much prefer princess play to pretending to shoot people.