Little Blue Schoolhouse: June 2010

6/24/2010

hare-ried!

Galloping off to a busy weekend...back soon with vacation pictures!

6/22/2010

here. There.

We're back.

Usually I say the best part of vacation is coming home.

Usually.

But not this time.

We spent so much time thinking forward to this trip, reminding the kids of their great friendships so they could pick right back up where they left off and planning where we would go and stay.

I forgot to plan for how hard it would be to leave, how hard it would be to tear that band-aid off of the freshly healed wounds.

I can honestly say that after the first two days I completely forgot about coming home because the whole trip didn't seem real to me.

Just another one of my fantastically tangible day dreams, complete with sound and smell.

The unearthly beauty of the landscape, the angelic faces of happy children, the tenuous new friendship between the husbands, listening to the joyful cacophony that is their family and being a part of it again...

All this did nothing to help me feel the reality of coming here, from there.

So here I am, feeling a bit numb, waiting for the tears to fall,

wondering how in the world we're going to make this work.

6/11/2010

Au Revoir!

I did it. My hair is now in the trash at the hair salon, and I'm sporting an angled, shoulder length bob with long layers and long bangs. I think I like it, but I've had it in a tiny stubby ponytail for two days while I"m packing.

Sorry, no pictures of the new 'do, but lots to come with me and plus good friends and incredible scenery!

After five million loads of laundry, thirty million trips to the store, and an hour in the kitchen making sandwich wraps with my mom, we're almost ready to leave.

I just gotta hang in there another couple hours so I can...

vacuum,

clean the bathrooms,

pick up the toys,

pack the clothes,

cut up veggies and fruit,

do a load of dishes,

and pack the car...

So long for now!

6/10/2010

falling UP

Last week on Friday, I tripped on a misplaced shoe and sprawled headlong onto my wood floor. My now-green bruises cover my left shoulder, my left breast, my left knee and my left big toe. I am also sporting a huge, itchy, rug-burn scab on that bruised left knee that is starting to flake off. It looks pretty hott!

Alec will never leave his shoes there again!

On Monday, my appointment to my chiropractor ushered in our week of getting ready, at long last, to visit our "extended family" in North Dakota!!! So far, thanks to my obsession with lists, we are on a good track to pulling out of the driveway at 7:00am on Saturday morning.

Today, (as per my list) I have a haircut appointment and I don't want to go. Over the past several months, due to some extreme amounts of stress, I have had some health problems. Among them was a very excessive amount of hair loss. My friends and family have kindly assured me that my hair does not look as thin and stringy as I think it does. I know my own hair, though, and when I started to have to wrap my ponytail elastic three times instead of two, I knew there was a problem!

I want to get a cute layered bob and keep it that way until my hair thickens back up. It has stopped falling out, thanks to the judicious use of some thyroid and vitamin B supplements, so I'm thinking one or two cuts and then I can start letting it grow again. Because, truly, I'm a long-hair kind of gal.

I am also feeling an urge to make a fresh new start, and often I cut my hair off when I finish or enter a major new life phase. Our visit with Brittany and her family will be the start of a new type of friendship for the both of us, one neither of us has experienced before. My visit there will also cement in my mind the fact that she really is gone for good, and my life here needs to shift and change.

I'm eager to see new places, sad to say goodbye to an old friendship, happy to say hello to a new one, excited to make a new start, nervous to cut my hair...and totally loving the whole journey!