The Simple Life.

I'm sure I've written about this numerous times, but I just can't get it out of my head.

Maybe it's just a phase. But it isn't one of those 10 minute phases.

Maybe it is a result of recoiling from the whole growing up thing. Where we have to pay a mortgage and worry about gas bills, and forego nights out on the town for staying in with a six-pack.

Maybe it's reading blogs about women who stay home with their children to watch them grow, and who grow their own vegetables and knit their own socks. Because isn't the grass always greener?

Maybe it's a function of seeing the daily news reports of recessions and depressions, and failing banks, and homeowners in crisis.

I remember, back in school, reading about the problems my generation would have with keeping up with my parents' generation. Whatever it was I was reading, or listening to, made the point that for generations and generations, the following generation made out better than the previous. Parents raised children who got more education, made more money, had more things, bigger houses, fancier cars, better savings. Whatever. And now, as my generation comes of age, the tables have turned. I will not, in many respects, have the things my parents had. Of course they had their own struggles. But they still managed to own a home, and cars, and my mother could stay home with us for 8 years. I'm not sure this is even a remote possibility for me. Not with out major cut backs, or a huge pay increase for my husband, or a windfall.

We're being knocked down a peg. We will not have everything we want. We might not even get everything we need. In an effort to preserve sanity and conserve energy and resources, simplicity is calling me. Maybe it's some sort of evolutionary mechanism. Or instinctual. I want to go somewhere quiet, where people aren't competing for the biggest house or fanciest car or whatever. I don't want to see a million people every day. I don't want to feel crazy every day because I feel like there is so much I should be doing, seeing. I want to live somewhere where it's ok to stay home all weekend because there is no other choice. I want to live somewhere where we can afford to be simple, and to stay at home.

I think, what it maybe comes down to, is that I'm tired of wanting, and tired of feeling like I need more. Tired of competing. Tired of climbing. I want a smaller house, a cheaper car, fewer televisions.

Maybe I'm crazy. But, until I am diagnosed as such, I am going to strive for less. Strive to be more giving, more resourceful. Less greedy. Less inclined to instant gratification.

I'll let you know how it goes.

My Stupid Mouth.

Sorry for the absense. I've been busy, lazy, thinking about other things, doing other things. I really do apologize. But whatever I'd had to say would have been boring anyway.

So. The news of the day is that I'm having a TMJ flare up. It's the news of the week, really. I was diagnosed maybe almost 2 years ago now. My dentist said the treatment was to use warm heat, eat soft foods, and take advil. He said the cure was to see a psychologist and get a job I loved.

Well.

I have had it pretty much under control ever since then, aside from minor flare ups brought on by eating a chewy dinner roll, or having a sub (or hoagie, or whatever you like to call it). Or eating too much hard meat (that's what she said). By hard I mean chewy, like steak, porkchops, overcooked chicken breasts. Basically, anything that requires more chewing than a noodle.

That's an exaggeration, the noodle thing, but I do have to be careful about eating too many things that are hard to chew in a short time span. One sourdough roll will give me a headache for a day. Having pizza, then a roll, then a sandwich on anything other than soft bread, then some steak, in a short time frame, let's say 4-7 days, leads to an extended bout of this nonsense. Throw in some building stress and a natural predisposition to clenching my jaw and I'm out of luck.

I've really done myself in this time. What can I say. Sometimes that Italian sub is just too good to pass up. So, starting today, I'm on to soft foods, hot compresses, and regular dosing of advil. The headaches that this crap brings on, while no wher enear debilitating, piss me the hell off. They get in the way of everything just enough that I'm not functioning normally.

Here's hoping that the soft foods diet leads to some weight loss.

Happiness is...

Seeing that your husband cleaned the kitchen for no real reason, and without being asked on a Monday night.

I want to go to Hawaii

For some reason, Hawaii just popped into my head. I have visions of warm, sweet breezes, the sounds of the ocean outside of my open windows, maybe some thunder in the distance, and lush green and color surrounding me.

I've never been to Hawaii. Honestly, I don't imagine that I'll ever actually get there. I'm really feeling like running away right now. Most of you have an idea of why, and while I know it will all get better, it's just creating this low level anxiety that is like a constant annoying hum that won't go away.

I want to sit in my sewing room in my house in Hawaii with the doors and windows flung wide open and make beautiful things. See beautiful, smell beautiful, feel beautiful, taste beautiful.

I want to wear my flip flops all day, every day. That, people, would be a little slice of heaven for me.

I'm sure there is a certain amount of approaching-mid-February-in-Maryland angst going on here. Especially after 3 beautifully sunny and temperate days in a row. It was lovely to go to bed in a warm house with the spring time smell wafting in through the few open windows. The not quite being warm enough all day and night, and grey skies, and dirty cars are getting to me. It's not uncommon for me, and any native Marylander, and non-native for that matter, can relate to how I feel. It hasn't even been that cold for that long, we haven't even gotten one good snow storm but we're ready for spring. That's where I am. But with added intensity this time around.

I'm feeling trapped. I'm feeling pent up. I'm feeling like I want to scream loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear.

Really, I'm happy. I'm satisfied. I love my life, my house, my husband, my friends, my cats. I'm more fortunate than many of my fellow Americans right now. I don't want to complain, really I don't.

It's just that I'm feeling particularly blah, and I can't quite shake it. I can fend it off. I even went a whole weekend without crying. I can distract myself. But I feel it building today. I think that if I could open up the windows in my house for more than 8 hours, and I could throw off the hot blankets, and if I needed my sunglasses more days than I didn't, I'd feel better.

At least it would be something until all this other stuff passes....