Feed the Cat

This is from my friend, Suzanne. We went on a humanitarian trip to Ukraine together. She is such a neat person...this clip is only one of the reasons we really understood each other.

P.S. The cat in this clip is Fritz. The only change I would make is that if he really gets upset he jumps up and turns on the bedroom lights. (seriously, no joke)

Stormy Weather

Apocalypse weather. You know the kind of day where the sun doesn't shine and the wind will blow, but then there is this eerie silence when it is so still outside that you can hear yourself breathing....well, that's today.

My friend, Denise, calls it tornado weather. I've never lived in the Midwest, but apparently the stillness is cause for alarm on days like today. The funny thing is that is feels far too cold for a big storm. I think that is why the day has had such a mysterious-ness to it. Oh, and I've had that Shaun Colvin song running through my head for TWO days..."Sunny came home with a mission"--Yeah, she came home to burn the place to the ground. Hum. Maybe I should up the dose on the old Lexapro (ha.ha.ha.)

Here's another weird thing. My dreams. I (as a general rule) do not dream. I lay down and crash. Jeff usually does all the psychotic dreaming that this family needs (ask him about falling out of bed). However, this past week I have been out of control. In fact, for the past two nights my dreams have been so vivid that I have been able to sit up in bed and wonder if they really happened. Two nights ago I seriously dreamed that Michael Scott (yes, Steve Carrell from The Office) came to the house to help me clean out the litter boxes. It was so real that I remember being seriously alarmed when I watched him start to use my good eyebrow tweezers to pick the "chunks" out of the litter box. He had a garbage bag slung over his shoulder like Santa Claus and he was cleaning them out piece by piece. The worst part was that I realized that the litter wasn't just contained in the box...it was strewn all over the basement in little tiny piles and Mr. Scott just kept commenting on how there was a lot of work to be done.

Okay, you can wipe your tears from laughter now because I woke up from my dream by laughing out loud. It was so hard to even have to explain to Jeff why I was laughing. Although, he didn't really laugh he just said, "Well, all it means is that you better get down to the basement and get the cat poopers cleaned up." So much for helping me to analyze THAT one.

Which reminds me that I never relayed this dream to Susie--I should have done that. I was just over at her house, but I wasn't thinking about my recent neurosis. Perhaps I should just leave it open to you (fellow readers). I'm sure that there are many of you who tune in weekly for your dose of Jim and Pam.

A 40-Hour Week

I'm really behind at work. uuggh. Is it possible to do 40-hours worth of work in the next two days, take care of the children, cook meals/clean house, exercise and still have a smile on my face??? Okay, is it possible to work 40-hours in the next two days? no. And if you have any questions about how my house cleaning is faring...well, check out this pile of laundry...

Yeah, there's a couch under there---and not only that, there are still about 5 loads that aren't even washed yet. I haven't been able to bring myself to start folding it because I know that I will be there for at least an hour. I can always seem to think of a million other things that I can do in an hours time. Oh, well, it's not like I've got a bunch of people coming over who will need a place to sit down. (how's that for justification?).

Earlier this week, Jeff sent me a NY Times article about international adoption and we also had some correspondence with Y Baby (who was in the same orphanage with Lachlan). I have to admit that I haven't thought about the reasons we adopted her for a very long time. After a lot of reflection, I'm surprised at how I simply accept the fact that she is our daughter. I really haven't had any time to think about her "past life". I've wondered often this week about what her birthmother looks like--I get so many comments about how Jack looks like me, and I wonder if she looks like her mother. Where are they? What are they doing? Do they think about her, or is their life simply a daily battle with survival? It very well could be...

The SLTribune had a week long series on the struggles of Chinese workers. The high cost of cheap products...something I used to teach about in my former life. How ironic that I shop on a weekly basis at Walmart and other discount stores--which, rarely showcase anything other than products made in developing countries--oh, there really is a cost for buying cheap. I hope that somewhere somehow Lachlan's parents have been able to make peace with their decisions. My heart would break if I thought that they are haunted by her...may there be some mercy for them. In the same regard, I pray for mercy on her future struggles. I hope that she will continue to be the resilient child we have come to know--that she will be able to put everything in the proper perspective.

I hope that as a mother I can do a good job of keeping her past and present in the proper perspective. It is so easy to just go through the motions of seeing that every one's physical needs are met. It is much more difficult to consider the emotional and mental aspects of life. Especially when Lachlan's are so specialized to a time and place of existence that I have never experienced on a personal level.

Hum, I'm not really sure where this one-sided conversation ends...maybe I'll have more to say after I fold all of the laundry.