2021 Check In/ Be In

 Hi Everyone,

We are still here and all vaccinated with Moderna. Because of Ellie our whole household and her carers were all able to get vaccinated. Dave and I are classified as "in home unpaid essential healthcare workers". Ain't that the truth! ;-)

I'm still worried about variants but not so freaked out about being within 3 feet of people while masked at the grocery store and not so freaked out when people walk by Ellie really close (we are obviously still masking while in public).  It is incredibly to read the news and see how many people are not really distancing in stores and to see the spring break events that might be super spreaders. Everyone is really fatigued by it all. Now that it's spring and the weather is a little warmer I do feel a life of energy. There's still not much to do, it's still very repetitive, but I'm trying to pull out of that fatigue.  Ellie's feeling it too. She's quick to cry and was just sick with some mystery virus - 102 fevers for 4 days with advil. She was tested and it wasn't covid but still hard. She's been tired. We worry about her iron levels and her diet.  I just found this great book: Dropping Acid by two doctors who researched reflux and the pepsin issues.  I have reflux too as it turns out - the lump in my throat that has been a constant for years and the hoarseness of my voice. My voice was so tired at the turn of the year my vocal cords would seize up. Not good as my job is teaching, coaching, consulting and all over zoom. Turns out the combo of 'silent' reflux, too much singing to Ellie in the months we  had no help, and all the zoom meetings contributed to vocal cord fatigue.  So I need to change my own diet AND I really needed to change Ellie's too.  Turns out the number one reflux food is chocolate and I had been giving her chocolate (avocado) based pudding every day. No wonder I have not been able to get her off the reflux meds! ughhhhhh.  The good news is avocado is a great food for refluxers. 

What I love about this book is that it's about controlling reflux with diet.  Have been revamping all her recipes and need to expand her diet anyway. It's an ongoing dance. 

This spring some of her favorites are:

Ellie's favorite hairdo - the big bun!

Obla di Obla da (especially the Gabriella Bee version)

Footloose by Kenny Loggins. We tried to watch the remake but it starts with a car crash - do not recommend. She liked the 1980's version better anyway - go 1980's - it's way less violent.

Ellie says that after the pandemic she wants to have a family reunion and go to Africa - specifically - Egypt! I'm so there...some day.  She also wants to go to her local coffee house again and do iPad club there. She misses the bustle of the place. 

She's still into dance parties and jam sessions. 

We are nearly done with all the Harry Potter books. 

She was doing virtual school for so long one of her favorite things to do was go visit her school at the weekend and look in the windows. She definitely struggles with the constraints of school (e.g., the schedule) but she certainly loves it just the same. 

Ellie at her school.

We started bullet journalling including 1 for Ellie for us to track her diet and care daily and she has a journal where she can recorde favorite questions, put photos in there of selfies with carers, and record her monthly top hits. A carer gave her this to track her hair styles too and Ellie really likes it. It's a way to give her choices too. We got her a little instant photo printer that she can use with her iphone. Oh - yes we got her an iPhone so she can keep in touch with her friends and family.  She likes doing selfies. 

That's the latest.  It's a hard time globally for everyone. Waayy harder for some than others. Everyone is under so much pressure. There's tension between those with privilege and those without and COVID deaths report that better than anything else. I am hopeful that coming out of this there will be social and environmental innovations that make the world a better place. 

Hope matters. Everyone is in their shadow - so compassion matters too.  

If there is anyone reading this - I am wishing you and your loved ones grace. Wish that for me too. I need all the help I can get. ;-)

2020 Post, COVID-19 Edition

Hi Everyone,

Checking in. We are ok - COVID-free so far. We are pretty much trying to shelter in place as it'd be bad if Ellie got the virus. She eats by mouth but a teaspoon at a time. A 1/2 cup of puree can take her 30-40 minutes to eat pending her appetite. When she is sick that time period can triple making it hard to keep her energy levels up. Her drinking is about a tablespoon per "drink". For Ellie drinking means we pour a small bit of water into her mouth and she then carefully works to swallow it.  She has low lung capacity from having had borderline chronic lung disease as a preemie and no capacity to do aerobic exercise. I don't know, due to her low muscle tone/hypotonic Cerebral Palsy, if she'd be able to cough it out if it went in her lungs. It could get into her brain or heart per the sequelae that has been reported.

Ellie in her stander.

So best not play a deadly game of dice with her. We are playing it safe, keeping her home, keeping ourselves very distant from others.  This thing is so contagious if it entered our home we'd be hard pressed to keep it from her as she is total care. We are blessed that we can shelter at home in terms of still keeping our jobs (so far) and having found ways to get food delivered.

Ellie's transition to "home school" was hard on her. We found about about 3 weeks in that she thought she was the only one who had been sent home. She started talking about "old school". She was really weepy breaking out into tears at random. Grief visits us all this way, a friend who stops by unexpectedly at the oddest moments. I think she thought she was being punished.

Once we found out we started reaching out to teachers and students to show they were at home too. That helped.

Her other upset was to realize that being home was not equated with the famous "no school" and that home school was an actual thing. That was quite a disappointment in her young life indeed.

Her teacher was also very slow for the most part to go virtual. They were uncomfortable with tech but also had already had trouble connecting with Ellie.  She is a bit adrift of connection and the poor handling of zoom  webinars means she is talked over, the pace is too fast and she is left behind with sensory overload. It's disappointing and an organizational psychologist I get what a huge sea change this is for the teachers. So patience is king here as we all pivot and shift and deal with the struggle to manage everyday things that were once easy that are now hard.

AND I get it that this comes from a hugely privileged place. My "problems" are good problems to have versus real problems including poverty and skin color discrimination and flat out danger because I am white. Life, is and has been for hundreds of years, exponentially harder for brown and black skinned fellow homosapiens here.  I am reading Ibram Kendi's How to Be an Anti-Racist and just finished D'Angelo's White Fragility. If I want there to be more tolerance in the world for difference I need to start with myself and unravelling my own racist indoctrination. I have been working on that for years but am riding the wave of momentum to take more direct action, as a leader in my organization, to accelerate the dismantling of systemic racism where I have influence. What's that saying, never doubt how small acts can help change the world..etc.

The world is reordering itself. Some battles will have to be fought again - like equal access for those with disability to attend school. A new class of people has formed - those vulnerable (and those caring for them in their homes) to the virus versus those that are not. It's a difficult time right now for billions of people. Things are unstable in the US in a way that is unprecedented in my own life time.

For the record - the US did not vote Trump into office. Hillary Clinton won the majority vote. But due to our antiquated electoral system, Trump was able to steal the election just like George Bush Jr. was able to steal it from the environmentalist, Al Gore. Can you imagine how much better the environment would be if Gore had won (he also won the popular vote)? I hope all of this wakes up all the people who don't vote, who don't participate in the active process of being a democracy...which we barely still are.  Could be that we are not and I am just in denial. It is a horrifying thing to understand how deeply flawed our democracy is.

Anyway, I am thinking about all the parents of special needs and typical kids, fellow bloggers and blog readers I have met in writing this blog over the years and feeling protective and worried for us all.

Ellie's Healing Powers

It's been roughly over a 2 months since we were in the ER on New Year's Eve wondering what the future would bring...wondering if she would still be here...still be whole...still be her sparkling, musical, snarky, happy, sweetie, intelligent self.  (scroll down for this back story)

When the ventricles held their own they tested her for other things and found she was anemic.  The symptoms of anemia are very similar to symptoms of pressure on the brain: fatigue, out of sorts, pain, etc.

We treated the anemia and she is back to baseline and along the way they took several more scans...and still no change in her ventricles.

The doctor's proffered up some scary options...over my dead body types of options...no you may not drill into her skull to insert a pressure gage to sit on her brain "just to be sure there is no pressure"...look to the child for crying out loud and the child was only minimally symptomatic.

There was that whispered hope though that maybe, possibly, her body had figured it out...we'd have to wait and see which felt like playing Russian Roulette with her life. As every parent of a child with any chronic medical issues knows, it's alway navigating toward the lesser evil when it comes to medical interventions. Wait and hope she doesn't get more brain damage or do someting that could give her more brain damage... shitty choices indeed.

We waited and scanned.

Our last visit to the neurosurgeon - who has taken a team approach and discussed Ellie with her pediatrician - I like her because of that - said that she had studied all Ellie's scans and that she suspects Ellie's shunt hasn't been working for a long time. The only clear scan of it is really years ago.

That and the fact that there has been no change.

The plan is this: scan her again in three months. If that is ok, then scan again in 6 months. And if that is clear go to yearly. She suspects Ellie is shunt independent.

This means that our child who left the NICU deaf now has perfect hearing.
Our child whose vision was so very minimal is now at 20/200.
Our child who had ventricles that could not drain the brain's cerebral spinal fluid because they were filled with scar tissue from the bleed, can now do that on her own without extra plumbing...

The messages I have been giving Ellie are that her body has amazing healing powers. That she is so very strong. All of the doctor's visits and the conversations have of course scared her as much as us.
The message is, your body is an amazing healing machine!

She gets a little smile when I say that too her...she's pretty patient with me...

Guest Blogging At What To Expect Dot Com

Can you believe it!?

Check out my first post in the Word of Mom content area.  Click here to read my post.

There is so much great content on this site and including writing about diverse experiences like mine - which I think is very cool.

Here is the content of that post:

What I Learned by Being Mom to My Beautiful Warrior Princess Daughter

Me and a 5 year old Ellie on a beach in California.

My challenge when I was asked to write for WhatToExpect.com was to decide what to write.What do I have to offer when my parenting journey has been so different?If I write about my actual experiences will it resonate with this community?

In attempting to write for a new community of people, far more diverse than the family, friends, special needs parents, and differently abled people who read my blog, I had many starts and stops. Finally, frustrated I gave up. A day later, while blow-drying my hair, when I do my best thinking, I realized that the "expected/traditional path" is not so commonplace anymore — nor has it ever been. I define "traditional path" as a. getting pregnant, b. having a baby, c. taking baby home, and d. living happily ever after. (Yes, I did read all the fairy tale books my local library had to offer before I was 10.)

So here goes.

I have gained some perspective from getting to be the mother of my beautiful 10-year-old warrior princess, who happens to use a wheel chair, contend with quadriplegic cerebral palsy (CP), feeding and speech issues, reflux, but who also loves life, Fijits, dancing, and school.

When Ellie was born three months early, things went differently than I expected. I spent the first few years of her life worrying and fearing how she might turn out. Not that any parent has ever worried like this before... I did wonder if her CP would get worse, would she ever walk or talk or laugh? I worried, am I parenting her well, am I doing things right, can I handle this? Again, questions no other parent ever asks...

Time is a wonderful thing in that it heals all wounds and addresses all fears through the crucible of experience and the lens of perspective. Now that she is 10, I have a lot of answers to my questions as well as a decade of experience under my belt in dealing with complex situations and making really tough choices. Here are some things I learned:

It's relative. Anything deviating from the expected path of have baby/take baby home is hard. During Ellie's long stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), full-term babies would come in for a day or two because they had jaundice. Their parents were just as upset as we were to find themselves peering at their baby, rocking Lady Gaga worthy shades, tanning under the bili lights. The key is to honor your experience and that of other parents. Here's a silver lining for parents of jaundice babies: Our doctors in the NICU said their research shows that such babes have higher IQs.

Parenting muscles strengthen over time slowly as you build up to what you can deal with or find someone to help. I don't subscribe to the credo that life never gives you more than you can handle. In my experience, life has often given me way more than I could handle. I think a more accurate sentiment is that life will always give you more than you can handle because as a species we live in communities versus being nomads. We are meant to work together and receive and give help. Over the last 10 years our family has had loads of help from doctors, nurses, teachers, and other parents who could handle the situations we were facing and either taught us what to do or got someone else to do things beyond our reach. I think when the unexpected happens it's important to remember that you are not alone because it's easy and reasonable to get very overwhelmed. Having a baby is overwhelming.

When I was pregnant with Ellie, she and I had this ongoing conversation. Dave composed songs for her and sang to my belly. We were so overjoyed we didn't worry about the future. Then when she was born three months early we suddenly had a lot to worry about and no prior experience to rely on — like most first-time parents with some added complexities. Today we have parenting muscles that are still being toned by Ellie. But we have help in each other and in our community. It's all worked out into a life filled with love, laughter, and meaning.

You are the expert on your child because you are paying the closest attention — don't forget that. We were very luck to have a great neonatologist who told us right from the start to "watch the baby" versus the monitors. This became a habit and as all parents know — you are observing your baby and small child 24/7. We have had to make a million between a rock and a hard place style decisions and heard very scary prognoses. If I had believed what the doctors told us (basically that Ellie would be a vegetable), I would not have done a lot of the things I did that have been vital to Ellie's development.

No neurologist has the final word, as the brain is still the ultimate black box of medicine. If anything, the doctors as a rule predict the worse — which was their way of trying to prepare parents. In my case it made me fight all the harder for Ellie.

Bottom line is you can't always believe what the doctors say about outcomes because sometimes they are guessing about a future they cannot always predict. More importantly, all children with challenges benefit greatly when they have someone who will make an investment in them. Look at Temple Grandin or Helen Keller or Ellie. The key is not to give up or be devastated by a prognosis so that you lose your connection with your child and your hope and creativity.

Ask each important question three timesto three different experts in order to come to your own best conclusion. We learned from Wry, a fellow NICU parent. When you have to make tough decisions about the health of your child, it's always an exercise in weighing two evils. Which one will help the most with the least side effects? We learned that if you ask the same question of three different experts, you often get three different variations of one answer or three different answers. This really helped us think for ourselves but also weigh our options with different perspectives. This can also be time consuming but for medical interventions that will be life changing for your child, if you have the time, this is not a bad use of it.

Let your love lead you. Your love for and bond with your child is a mystical thing of mythic proportions. My heart opened up all the way when Ellie came into my world. It's the best love I have ever felt (and I love my husband dearly). This love for her has carried me through it all — and continues to. This love makes any challenge I have to go through worth it. Love has many, many expressions. Some expressions of love are subtler than others but if you are paying attention you will find a huge bounty no matter what differences you are facing.

"You don't have to break in two to love someone"

This is the line uttered by one of my favorite characters in a great story called "What Dreams May Come" (also a movie with Robbin Williams) and that line keeps running through my head when I think about all that is before me to manage lifting Ellie.

My back has three damaged discs already - two are properly ruptured and one is bulging but I think I actually ruptured it too about a month ago. But I didn't go to the doctor only the chiropractor because I didn't have time. See the problem already?

And I keep hearing the line only it now goes "ya shouldn't have to break in two to love someone".

I have dreaded this day and now it's here and it sucks. We wiped out all our small savings to build her a room which is still not done. I got a loan for that as well - so more debt - yay! Our car door does not open very wide so it's a hard lift getting her in and out of it that often leaves my back in bits or Ellie with a bump. This is just not right. I am exploring options of getting a used minivan with a rotating seat. A conversion van is out of the question - just way too expensive. And none of this is covered - nor is any part of her accessible room by insurance or anything. Let's hope neither of us gets laid off.

I feel like we are walking a tight rope and it's a little scary. I am done with trying to be super mom. I will still go to the gym and do the physical therapy and strengthening exercises the back boot camp people gave me. I will keep strength building. However, bird boned as always, I am at my limit. I wish I was some sort of amazon woman body builder type with big large bones that would make lifting Ellie no problem. But I am not and it is a problem that is getting bigger by the day (also great problem to have if you have read my post on counting her weight in grams). I have also thought about hiring a bouncer. I imagine some big guy just hanging around reading the sports pages, head shaved, wearing black, enormous but benevolent and waiting around patiently in between lifting Ellie for me from car to chair, from chair to bed, from bed to chair, from chair to couch, from couch to chair...you get the idea. But that is just too weird. ;-)

So how do I put my foot down and protect my back so that by the time I am 50 I can still stand erect? How do I say no more lifting and still take care of her? I haven't figured it out yet and right now as I write this I am in a bit of despair. Dave is going to be traveling soon and that leaves all the lifting to me. So it seems I may have to break in half to love someone. I am not happy about this. It is energizing in that I will once again have to fight the school people who think it's alright that Ellie ride the bus with people who won't look me in the eye and talk on cell phones the whole time they are driving her. I have to find some way to buy a used car to get the swivel seat thing maybe which means haggling with the dealership which I am not good at. As well as take on more debt which may not be possible.

I am overwhelmed. Ellie is maturing very fast it seems so we have to have that conversation with the doctors too. If this is her natural time to mature ok. BUT if she is maturing too quickly so that her final height is under 4 feet - I am so not for it. My whole goal with all medical interventions she undergoes has been to try to preserve her body to what it would have been had her brain not been deprived of oxygen at birth. The brain is plastic and resilient and nano technologies are coming along quickly. You just never know. And if there is some massive healing in her future I don't want her to end up being less than 4 feet tall - that is just not right. I want her to grow and mature - it's her right of passage. So we need to figure this out too and the truth is - other than the bone age hand scan - it's hard to tell what would have been.

Brain injuries really suck for the record.

To flip the coin to the sunny side, it's very clear that she is making progress in school. Awesome progress and happily so! She "ran" in a Turkey Trot which involved a large, loud crowd and she managed it. She didn't freak out at all. This is literally a first. She is also making progress in her academics and her teacher this year sends home excellent homework and this is a focus. Which is such a balm to me. Why not throw all the academic stuff possible at Ellie and see what she does with it? I hate it when anyone underestimates her.

I also made a connection with someone who really knows the Feldencrais landscape so we will be trying that. Dave researched this electrical stim therapy as well that helps build muscle so we are looking into that as well. It feels good to be once again looking at healing therapies versus solely medical management issues. On that front we are never doing botox again (we have been using it prevent contractures in Ellie's ankles - to no avail I might add) and I regret we did it at all. More on that when we figure this new path out.

Also, my study for my dissertation was approved and I will be collecting data soon and hopefully completing my Ph.D. in March of 2012. Completing that will be like taking a huge bloody thorn out of my side that has been there for the past decade. I hope it will feel good and won't tear too much in the extraction. Writing the lit review was like giving birth so maybe that was the worst of it.

I have to remember that these are all really good problems to have and that it could be way worse. Yet I am restless. Very restless. It's hard to stay present - it's uncomfortable every day.

I also keep remembering this story:

There is a woman that is very unhappy with her life and she goes to a yogi for help. The yogi says, "This is what you need to do, move the chickens into the house with you." She is surprised but complies and comes back to the yogi in one month and tells the yogi that her life is even worse than it was. The chicken's are always underfoot as are the children. They are also really noisy as are the in laws so there is a constant din. The yogi says, "Ok then, now move the cow into the house as well." She complies and goes back to the yogi again but this time after only two weeks. She tells the yogi that she is at her wits end. The cow is taking up any extra room they had and is nibbling on all the rugs and moos really loudly all the time. The yogi tells her, "Ok, move the chickens and the cow back into the yard". She does this. She sees the yogi around town and thanks the yogi for all the help and tells the yogi that her life is oh so much better and she is so grateful. ;-)

Right now with the construction, the dissertation, my re-injured back, the doctors appointments, the search for proper transport - it's all cows and chickens. But I suspect it will get better. Thanks for listening.

Image descriptions:

Ellie in pink winter coat looking for me as she rides Splitty last Saturday

Ellie with feathers still in her hair and ribbon from the Turkey Trot. Also, notably, siting, propped but unassisted!

Eight is GREAT!

I can't believe she is eight! I can't believe all her NICU buddies are eight! I can't believe it's been eight years since her birth. That just seems so incredible. Several friends and family have said the same mantra, " I can't believe she is eight." That short sentence does harken to the fact that is was never a given that she would ever be eight. Against all odds we are so blessed!

Last year Ellie, around this time, actually late August until late December was in and out of the hospital constantly with we didn't know what except that it was neuro and involved her being in lots of pain and me being very scared, tired, etc. Turned out it was abdominal migraines and I think side effects of coming of Depakote.

This year, knock on wood, things are going much, MUCH better. Thank you to all the powers that be and mostly to Ellie herself for being a consummate warier princess!

Last year, because of all that, I didn't do the montage. This year I will but not yet. First I have to make a chocolate cheesecake for her pirate party tomorrow (She eats pureed food so I thought she might be able to handle cheese cake). There's an idea, make her a cake she can actually eat... only took me 8 years....ah well. ;-)

We are having her party back at home this year. Last year was great at the ballet studio but since then that class was cancelled and the locaton was so far flung most people could not come. This year we are staying home, which is probably one of Ellie's favorite places to be anyway. Dave created a family pirate treasure hunt, complete with clues and lots of Ahoy theres! and ARRRRGGGGGHHHHS! etc. I get to make food for kids and adults which is perfect. My parent friends deserve good nosh as much as their adorable babies who are not babies anymore but 8 or close too! Yikes!!!

Pictures soon to come of many things as we have made progress on the body jacket positioning front and new style AFO's and of course Splity.

Picture description: Ellie wearing her cousin Halle's sparkly hat sitting with Mama in a southern "Mic O'Donnell's" so coined by her cousin Henry waiting out a squall while on vacation this last August.

Cold Turkey Java

It's been a long time since I wrote a post under the label "Batshit Insane". I think that is because when I work this much I am not as funny as I am when I am working less...very sad indeed.

BUT, for the record I have given up coffee - successfully. I haven't had any for over 2 weeks and don't miss it. I still have one cup of earl gray tea in the morning and the occasional soy chai latte but they effect me so much less than the coffee did.

Me and coffee are pretty much done. And I don't miss the nervousness, the extra sweating, the rapid heartbeats, the skin breakouts, and the sleepiness it was causing me! So what was once so hard to do as you can see here, is now done.

Gotta look for something positive after this long afternoon!

Picture description: The de-coffeed me - being cheeky sticking my tongue out at Dave and now all of you...

Java Boycott - Day 2

OK - so it turns out that not only do I have to quit caffeine but I have to get everyone else on board. I am wayyyyyyy deep into the coffee culture and that culture is hanging on tight. sniff, sniff....

First of all the Gods of Java are in bed with the Gods of No Sleep and they all got together last night and came over. Yep - I spoke too soon, Ellie was up for half the night and of course it was the night before I had to take the first half of my sign language final exam. I believe the name of this half of the test is titled, "How to look like an idiot in under 2 seconds flat" which is translation for having to sign an entire song in front of the entire class. rrrrr (Actually learning to sign a song is a great way to increase your sign language vocabulary and kind of fun. It's just the having to sign it and act it out in front of others that bites.) I did my main practicing while driving back and forth to pick Ellie up. People are so rude to stare at me like that! Haven't they seen sign language before?! Sheesh.

But I digress. So I was up half the night because even if Dave goes in, I can still hear her and can't sleep the difference is I can at least not get a huge crick in my neck and now I owe him the whole week of nights, which is how I got him to go in and take last night. See the marital dynamics?! It's all one big fat negotiation after the next. Alas, it works and we are happy and if the GNS are here for the rest of the week I am so screwed.

OK, OK - can you tell I have had some caffeine!? So up half the night, big test looming at 10am. But just the same I did gear down and only have a cup of Barry's tea this morning. I get to school just fine and am feeling pretty good. I drop Ellie off and head off to the diner I always go to in the hour I have to cool my heals before class. They have the BEST pancakes in Boston and I can get two strips of beacon, a large pancake, one egg over easy, bottomless cup of coffee and a small OJ for under $7. And they don't mind that I sit there and frantically practice my signs to brush up before class. The waitress is really sweet and one of those people that can call you honey and it is a nice thing. Usually I walk in and I say, "Hi!" to her and the guys behind the breakfast bar at the fryer. She says, "Hi honey." and brings over my coffee and OJ. 5 minutes after that my breakfast appears. You see the problem? So with the hot steaming cup of brown gold right under my nose, I thought, OK, because I have this sign language test I will just drink half a cup. But after my pancake was demolished she came over and filled my cup up again with coffee!

What am I going to do? I am going to have to admit I am jumping off the java bandwagon. Next Tuesday I will have to say, "Hi, just OJ today please, trying to quit." I hope she understands.

Sigh. This might be harder than I thought!

Caffeine Dreams

I wasn’t always a caffeine drinker (a.k.a. caffeine: abuser, holic, covetous imbiber of the brown death). No. Actually for years I shunned all caffeinated drink and food. I could sip warm herbal teas with the best of them. I used to drink orange juice for a pick me up or water.

On the occasional chance that I would accidentally eat something with caffeine it would give me the jitters leaving me tired afterward. I didn’t even like chocolate as a kid (I did like white chocolate Easter bunnies though).

I worked as a barrista in a mom and pop coffee shop that roasted its’ own beans and everything. I loved the aroma but not the drink itself. So what happened? How did I get snared by this non-drug, drug?

It was a trifold curse starting with Graduate school and the allure of Starbucks, seconded by birth of nonsleeping spawn, and thirded by caffeine addicted sibling who bought us a cheapo coffee maker and then spent a week plying us with evil brown morning elixer of life.

In graduate school I chose to write one of the many, many 35 pagers on Starbucks and their unique business model. My paper complete with graphs was a 50 plus page comment on my enthusiasm. Evidence that I had fallen in love with the whole third place to escape to, brown warm fuzzy in a cup, cool to be seen not seeming to be seen, I am finally not such a goodie two shoes non coffee drinking odd ball culture. And little by little I was hooked on latte’s: tall soy vanilla lattes please. The fact that I was working full time and going to graduate school full time did nothing to dissuade the extra mental clarity I would get after my own natural resources were wasted. I became a coffee achiever and devotee. And truly I am grateful for the Starbucks in Redondo Beach where I could sit outside for hours reading through hundreds of pages of required learning and sip a latte and feel the flow of life around me versus being shut up in my room going mad trying to get through all that reading as interesting as it was. For that I will always love Starbucks.

Then Ellie was born and she turned out to be a disciple of the Gods of No Sleep (GNS) for the first four years of her life. (Update on what we will just say is a new sleep pattern coming soon - maybe - you know I am superstitious about that and GNS are petty, vindictive, narcissistic lot - so enough said!) And because she is Ellie and we are attachment parents and her medical needs were intense it was an up all night party and I was still working the big job. Coffee became essential.

But now that Ellie is embarking on a new night time routine involving different gods (sorry to be vague but you know why) I am starting to remember that I really don’t like caffeine. For one it wrecks my skin. I remember that from college when I would accidentally get some caffeine and my skin would look blotchy. Also, after all the trauma and fatigue and STRESS of the last 5 years caffeine with its two stepping dance partner cortisol is the last thing I need. And, let’s face it folks I am getting older. And caffeine and the lack of sleep for the past several years are the main culprits to making me look my age, which I never have and don’t yet but am getting closer. Since I am not one for celebrity age control madness meaning: botox, mechanical fluid injections, leech therapy, Ashton Kutcher therapy (well maybe Ashton Kutcher…) are not in my future I need to cut out the caffeine and the processed suger and the stress... put one foot in front of the other....(see how my mind wanders?!)

I really feel that not having any caffeine will help all my cells take a deep breath and a long exhale which I badly need to relax. Ellie is stronger now and healthier and settled in a GREAT school – so it’s time to abandon the flight/fight/fright approach to life with all its highs and lows and relax into a rhythm that will help me keep a steady pace.

So today I didn’t have any espresso in the morning from our lovely espresso maker. I slogged through the day until 3:30 pm. But there was work to be done and my brain was foggy all day. So I broke down under the selfless, lying auspices of making a latte for a friend (not that I don’t enjoy serving my friends) and made a cuppa the brown death for myself as well. Yep. One, two, three gulps gone just like the old owl discerning how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. That would be three, three gulps to finish a latte and presto! I felt more awake, more alert, and my cells sighed in sadness as the wall came down and my heart began to race. I really don’t know how drug users do it assuming coke and crack are a slight bit more intense than caffeine but then again maybe they aren’t.

Tomorrow is another day and instead of going cold turkey maybe I will just have a cuppa Barry’s tea. Any thoughts out there on how to break this addiction?! Or am I completely batshit insane and should just give up trying to quit as a bad job?

The politics of gender

The politics of gender are a huge force in this election. The force that is putting Hillary most in the spotlight or petri dish of scrutiny. And that is a sad thing.

Here is an article that sums up a great deal of what is going on very well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-jong/tears-fears_b_80679.html


Back to the normal programming tomorrow. This year I have vowed to get educated on all the candidates and of course, blogging is going to be a part of my endless need to talk to myself in public. Bear with me.

Alive and Well and Really Tired

Hi Everyone. This is just a quick post to let you know that Ellie is fairing very well after her big scary seizure. They think at the end of the day it was triggered by the ear infection and that she had viral meningitis.

She seems to be recovered from all of that and the spasticity in her ankles is GREATLY reduced. What is up with that? Ok for silver linings.

But the more important outcome is that she is herself, her bright, loving, funny, smart little girl self. We didn't lose any of her that I can tell - thank all the powers that be. She is extra tired from the increased seizure dose. We get her levels checked tomorrow so we will see where she is. We are aiming for the 90's which if you had told me that a year ago I would have been really upset. In the past the initial medication increase fatigue lasted about 2 weeks. We are coming to the end of that two weeks so hopefully she will start getting her energy back. It's hard to see her with dark circles under her eyes and having trouble staying asleep at the same time.

I, on the other hand, and Dave, are really tired. I think I have viral meningitis too due to the constant headache I have in the back of my head going on two weeks or more now. We are not sleeping well because every little movement we run in to her. I really should take up donations for a king size bed. It's the only way any of us will ever sleep well again.

Ellie is so quirky too. She might be scared as we are for all I know. She wants us to come in to her if she wakes at night. Which we do, if we are not hovering there already because we heard her catch her breath. Then she wants a snuggle. Then if she is hungry we feed her and diaper her if that is the need. Then, when all is said and done, including reading ALL the language on the baby wipes box (Kirkland from Costco) several times she wants to go to sleep - NOW. She says, "Ahhh!" and pushes me away and curls onto her left side, forehead buried in the pillow and goes to sleep. It's a somewhat abrupt dismissal at times. But ah well, maybe she is just preparing me for her teen years when she won't want me in her room at all.

On top of all of this we are having to make some critical repairs on our ramshackle house regardless of headaches and braced up knees I have been digging some ditches. Nothing so humbling as digging a ditch.

In between all this chaos we have managed to take Ellie to the beach once as well as the farm to pet the animals. At the beach she loved the pop up tent we got her as did every little toddler in the immediate vincinty so we were blessed to have a lot of little curious visitors that day. She took her nap in it and then played in the tidal pools with dada. She loved the ocean and wanted to keep going in the waves. Then the minute she got in she wanted out because it was really cold and then after warming up in a minute or two would want to go back. Her love of the water is one of the ways we know she is truly our daughter. She was just delighted with the whole thing. She even had her first ride on the Merry-G0-Round, though I don't think we will do it again because it made her pretty dizzy. Not a good thing with the seizure factor in there.

At the farm yesterday she actually initiated reaching out to touch the sheep. She laughed at the baby goats who all wanted to meet her. She has also started signing. Really signing. She will imitate me signing and will sign back. This is a HUGE new development.

That is the current state of things. Apologies to all for not getting back to you more quickly. Looking at the computer is painful right now, it seems to make my headache worse. I will post some pictures tomorrow and post responses to everyone's comments. Thanks to all for your leads on alternative treatments for Ellie and healing thoughts.

Twitter This! - NOT just an American Thang

For those of you who have not noticed I have a Twitter account and you can read the moment to moment details (in under 100 characters) of my incredibly titillating and exciting life by checking out the box at the right of your screen (well whenever I update it).

Today, I was astounded to see that Barak Obama has a Twitter account. So, of course, I added him as a "friend". Below is the reply I got back via Twitter (a company cofounded by college drop out turned blogger turned writer turned major business mogul Biz Stone):

Hi Kathryn,

Barack Obama (BarackObama) added you as a friend!
Check out Barack Obama's profile here: http://twitter.com/BarackObama


Best,

Twitter




How cool is that?

It's Official: We're Batshit Insane

Ah, there's nothing better than a man who knows how to handle a drill.

What is a three day weekend for if not to work on your ramshackle house? Yay for us! Yay for our initiative and optimism and courage in the face of the unknown. We are laying down a hardwood floor in our sixteen by thirty one foot kitchen/everything room. (I can't bear to tell you how many square feet that is as I may need to be medicated if I do.)

We have said a sad farewell to the plywood we had been living on for almost three years. The impetus for this farewell - the humongous splinter I sustained in my heal just minutes before the decision to finally finish the floor was made. Yes, that was how the madness began. Does blood poisoning set in that quickly? Maybe I just have a fast metabolism.

Dave and I are nothing if not spontaneous - this has it's pros and cons. Dave procured the wood through all manner of financial magic and space shifting to get 25 bundles of it home in our car. We (mostly him) started on the task. Sanding down rough edges, laying down red resin paper, figuring out how to make the whole thing straight so you don't feel dizzy when you look at it. Dave is a wizard to have figured this out in our 1935 wonder house where not a straight line or right angle has made an appearance since original beams were milled.

See the bit of white along the wall - that was my handy spacko work. I think we have already saved about $200 dollars on the heat we haven't lost. Why we did not think of that one three years ago I will never know.

However, spontaneity has its price and we are not two single people on for the task. No, we have a kid - you might have notice the beauty with the blond curls and most pinchable cheeks on the planet. Yes, well, said child doesn't just disappear because we have suddenly lost our sense of reason and decided to take on a huge task. So, since Dave is only slightly more handy than me, cough,cough, I would be the one to hang out with Ellie. No problem there, she's great company. But Dave quickly found out that laying down a hardwood floor is more of a two person job than we first envisioned. That same vision included finishing putting down the boards on day 2 and then doing the finish each night. See what I mean about having lost our minds?

Another price of spontineaity is that the few people we asked for help were unavailable. Yes, they are snug by their cozy fires, sipping their drink of choice, very happy that they had other plans. But we must have had some good karma due to us because this man showed up on the scene day one and day two. P is officially in my good books - FOREVER. He has made all the difference and single-handedly saved us from the abyss.

Stay tuned for more pics as the hardwood rules over the plywood splintered sub floor. We should be done in several months...

You say NaBloPoMo, I say NaBloBigMo…hahahah!

Here at Ryn Tales National Blogaholic Binge Month (NaBloBigMo), originally coined by Mrs. Kennedy at Fussy as National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), is finally here! Just what you have all been waiting for! I can feel the Blogosphere rumbling and screeching into high gear as bloggers of all kinds go into a headfirst spin down the slippery slope of madness that so characterizes NaBloBigMo. Needless to say it should all be very satisfying.

Just to be clear, I am NOT participating in NaBloBigMo. No, no way! I committed to NaNoWriMo first which you can check out here http://www.nanowrimo.org. If I were to do both I am sure I would slip into the parallel universe forever where I am actually a graying, skinny ass spinster with spiders clinging to my hair as it sweeps the floor as I haunt my ramshackle house with only the company of 300 cats. I shudder at the thought. So, no, No, NO, I just can’t go there.

However, for those of you who are participating in NaBloBigMo because you heard about it here and thought it would be a cool thing to do, I have some suggestions about what you can write about – everydamndayofthemonth! Remember these are just suggestions, you can NaBloBigMo however you like. They are as follows:

November 1 - Document all the batshit insane (BSI) things you did on Halloween. Dave and I looked like this (will load picture as soon as blogger is done fixing their photo upload app - which the picture of us actually broke). Ellie pretty much would not look at me deciding she would prefer it if I go exist in the parallel universe with the cats. If you are of a religious bent, it’s also All Saints Day – so go ahead and pick your favorite saint to expound about in your first entry of NaBloBigMo.

November 2 - List your three favorite blogs and why you like them. That would look something like this: #1. Ryn Tales: It’s informative and funny, 2. Ryn Tales: ditto #1, and 3. Ryn Tales: ditto #1 and #2. Anyway, you get the idea.

November 3 – Share the 10 things you like to do when you are procrastinating. Like for example, I am blogging right now when I should be figuring out what the hell I am going to write my novel about.

November 4 – Your life in pictures – go crazy

November 5 – It’s the full moon tonight so do a free writing like the one I did here just so everyone can be really clear about just how BSI you are. AAAAOOOOOOO!

November 6 – Share who you plan to vote for in the election or at least what you will be wearing when you VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

November 7 – It’s Election Day so GO VOTE and then blog about your voting experience. Did you get any cool stickers with little check marks on them that say “I voted!”? Did you exchange fisticuffs with a voter from another party? Oh wait that was me last time around. I had finished voting against Bush when I bumped into this woman with a big “W” all done up in diamante’s of stars and strips pinned to her cracker barrell chest. I said excuse me, and she said in a Texan drawl, “Vote faw Dubya!” To which I informed her that we had cancelled each other’s vote out entirely. Things went pear shaped from there…

November 8 – Write about how you will bask in the glory of a new democratically controlled congress and renewed hope for the survival of the species and the planet. Or, drown your sorrows in a pint of tequila and help others by blogging about ways you can avoid thinking about the next years of continued republican tyranny.

November 9 – Conquer your post election hangover by listing three beautiful things that gave you pleasure today. In fact, you could just forget this freakishly geeky list and do this every day of the month. If you are lucky, Clare might even link you to her blog honour roll.

November 10 – Do a blog entry you were intending to do anyway. Catch back up with your own life and take a break from reading my blog!

November 11 – It’s Veterans’ Day and I would really love to hear other people’s opinions about why it is, indeed, possible to have empathy and support for our soldiers but still be against the war. You know, the two can really be separate.

November 12 – If you have gotten this far your creative juices are probably up to speed so you can figure out what you want to write about without my #$%^&** help!

Happy NaBloBigMo!!!

Blog This! It's Batshit Insane.

Blog Culture is weird. If I put my organization psychologist hat on, I know I only think it’s weird because I don’t fully understand it – yet. My gut tells me that once I understand it I will actually realize it's “batshit insane”. I really want to know who coined that one? In one day it appeared on the posts of two of my favorite bloggers, which you can read here and here. “Batshit insane” I just want to say it over and over. It cracks me up. Batshit insane – I love it!

Here are some of the surprising and weird things I have discovered about the blogosphere:

1. People plagiarize ideas for posts if not the actual verbiage. Plagiarize might be the wrong word but it’s clear that ideas here feed inspiration there. I think the proper etiquette is to give the person you got the idea from credit like I did here. I have a plagiarism sensitivity chip on my shoulder from way back into my childhood when I would tell my little sister jokes to make her laugh until her ribs ached. Ultimately she would tell MY jokes at the dinner table as if they were her own. Ok – I am a middle child – can’t I at least be the funny one? Like I said, it’s an old chip. It’s my cross to bear in life and its sole purpose is to insidiously breakdown my ego whenever it gets out of control.

2. There are cliques in the blogosphere. I don’t know why that surprised me – but it did. Biz Stone calls them weak ties. Weak ties are the crux of information networks. In this sense the blogosphere is one big brain. I am starting to see how ideas take root and travel at hyperspeed across cyberspace. It’s so interesting in a geeky PhD OP student kind of way.

3. The blogosphere is vast. This is not a surprise to me. I knew it would be big. I have heard figures thrown out like 4.5 thousand new blogs conceived every minute. That's a heck of alotta blogoception going on! I have no idea if that is true. I do know there are more blogs than one person can get through in a day or even a year.

4. For all this blogging, it is still relatively unknown en masse to older generations. And, sadly, by that I mean - my generation. I do see a lot of Genxers blogging. I wonder if they, like me, have worked in high tech. Outside of this group, however, many of my smart, dynamic, wonderful friends are like, “Ah yes, yes, Blogging, it’s the wave of the future.” Ahem – it’s so already here. Or they say, “You blog? Isn’t that like spilling your guts in public? I don’t think I could ever do that.” Luckily, as we bloggers know, you can totally control the gut spillage unless you are a true blogaholic who is ready for Betty Ford. I was surprised how many of my non-techie friends seem a bit put off and definitely felt themselves up against a learning curve when I said to them, “You should blog! I would read you every day!” Kripes if a 70 something Brit can do a You Tube video blog, I think my friends can do a Blogger.com, made for the hopelessly non-tech savvy blog.

5. Knowing a little HTML helps. Yes, this statement just completely obliterates the last sentence of the paragraph before this. Here is what some of the silly stuff looks like when I write it: F@#K S#K%!

But it’s true. If you really want a cool, dooce-quality blog you need to customize it. You need to go beyond Blogger.com. You have to get into WordPress or Typo and then fix the issues with your template by inserting the right HTML commands. If anyone out there knows of a good HTML book, please let me know. I just can’t bear to get HTML For Dummies out of the library. Why start learning from someone who is already beating you up? I will need lots of positive feedback at all times if I am going to tackle something like HTML.

6. Bloggers that you initially found to be extremely humorous are only mildly so after you read them for a while. I am sure my blog is included. Reading a great many blogs is like watching a lot of TV. In my experience when I don’t watch TV for a really long time, and I have gone years, once I do watch it, it’s really funny. Commercials are just hilarious in a batshit insane kind of way. (Had to use it again.) I think blog reading is like that. You need to step back so you don’t over do it. I try to help others with this issue by not posting everydamnday! Take a break, give your brain a rest and then come back to Ryn Tales and it will all seem so much better. I guarantee it. And notice how I don’t say better than it actually is? I say this because in my world reality is constructed. Yep, make of it what you like. Know that in holding this view, and being a tad OCD about it, I feel the necessity of going back into old posts to add pictures, delete errors or add thoughts like this one.

7. There is a lot of heart and courage in the blogosphere. I am really impressed with the willingness of people to share their stories with such honesty and clarity. I have been especially helped by the bloggers who write about life with disability. The Gimp Parade recently made me consider Ellie’s life, as it is, in a new way. That may sound odd, but go ahead and read the header on The Gimp Parade and if you think you can still judge the truth of it after that let me know.

8. I think blogging on a regular basis, like journaling, can give you greater clarity and perspective on your life. The big difference is, of course, that there are always readers out there to add to your newfound perspective by letting you know you are batshit insane (I couldn't resist). That is way more dynamic than journaling. For the record, if I read your blog and I think you are full of shit, I won’t email you or comment. I will just keep it to my lurking self.

There is a lot more to be learned from the blogosphere I found in my petri dish, but that’s it for tonight. Goodnight to all my loyal lurkers!

Waiting, waiting as fast as I can

Sometimes you have to go slow, to go fast. This is the theme of my life at the moment. Do you hear the Gwen Stephanie Running Running as fast as I can track in the background - well change running to waiting and that is the song I can't get out of my head? Thirty plus years of growing, learning, working hard and generally excelling are all on hold. It’s as if someone upstairs hit the big PAUSE button on the remote running my world through the TIVO in the sky. This message is everywhere. Ok I get it! Enough already. I keep getting the message to slow down through passages of books I read and "random" stories my friends tell me. Sometimes you have to slow down in order to go forward. Ok, I get the concept. But, who, I ask you, WHO in their right mind wants to slow down? Not me, that much is true.

I was so depressed about living life in the slow lane that I had a craving for comfort food. I told Dave, when he came home last night, “I want to make Mac-N-Cheese.” He replied, “Today that bad?”

“You mean last night that ran over today crushing it with bleary eyed wakefulness? You mean with no naps for a very cranky Lady Muck, who hates her casts? Yes, it was that bad.” I replied getting up to start on dinner. Dave has clearly transcended his husband training status because at this he said nothing.

I started to pull out ingredients realizing I had forgotten how to make it. I called Mom to ask her how. And what had she just popped into the oven but the very same dish. For the record, you cook the noodles and cheese sauce beforehand to ensure all live enzymes and germs are dead and to allow the Trans-fats to properly rev up their carcinogenic properties. Then you bake this 1960’s delicacy topped with Ritz for another 50 minutes.

When my Mom told me she was making the same thing at first I thought it was one of those cool synergistic moments when you know you are on the same wavelength with someone else. It’s really fun when it happens with your husband or say, someone like, Stephen Hawking or Madonna. But when it happens with your mom, who as it turns out, is living in the parallel universe next to yours….

Oh Gods of TIVO, please take me off pause and switch the channel!

Luxury for all?

Have we become a society of foodies and product people? Are luxury goods available on a scale unheard of in the past? Do the non-rich really have access to the same things mega-rich people do? Good food, good wine, goods made to pamper the body, therapies designed to mellow the mind, and the usual necessities that proliferate our culture – coffee and chocolate and cotton. Does the status of our credit card Nation attest to the fact that we all want the finer things and are often too willing to live beyond our means to get them? Is it that this generation, unlike others in the past, does not look to the future because of an unspoken assumption that there is none?

Someone once said to me that every generation conceives of it’s problems as worse than the one before. The depression era babies went from poverty straight into WWII. The baby boomers started out in a consciousness of abundance, possibly the knee jerk reaction of their parents as a way to deal with posttraumatic stress – give the kid everything. The advertisements in the 50’s would show a running tap and an announcer would say in a booming voice, “Go ahead, run the tap! There is enough water to run it forever!” It was as if this generation collectively decided, “The world is our oyster and we will eat and eat and eat.”

Then these pampered, abundance loving, consumer boomers dealt with Vietnam and the cold war. Gen X and Y are dealing with genocides on such mass scale. It seems that the global horror felt at the holocaust is not present for more recent genocides. The world’s muted response to Tibet, Rwanda, and the Kurds and others is perplexing in an intellectual sense and horrifying in an empathic one. Gen X and Y are living in a world where genocide is so rampant that mass protest of them does not occur.

The old symbols of security have also crumbled with many Enrons and Halliburtons ensuring the end of the job. No one in my generation in his or her right mind truly believes in the pension myth. The very thought of a company that will provide for us in our old age is laughable. I have yet to meet another Gen X’er that believes they will ever see one cent from Social Security in their old age. It’s not like we bemoan this. We just live with it the same as we live with our understanding that the earth is round and acid rain falls on the Adirondacks.

So do we bargain our future for a little momentary comfort? Does my Peet’s latte distract me from the real fear that North Korea may nuclear bomb the crap out of us tomorrow?

In parallel to the over spending masses, the rich are getting richer and the gap between rich and poor wider and wider. NPR was having a discussion about this that touched upon the expectations the rich have of aging. The whole idea of looking your best was put into a whole new plastic perspective. The question, it seems has become, not if you will elect for plastic surgery, but when you will NEED it - that is if you care about keeping up your status in society as a worthwhile human being. After listening to this show I realized that the gulf between the wealthiest elite and me is really, really HUGE. The gulf I saw spans beyond what they own and I don’t all the way into a difference in values.

So do we really have what the truly wealthy have? I think, probably not. I know of a few truly wealthy people. They go to places I have never heard of and wear watches that make Rolex look shabby. But PR firms and marketers bank on their assumption that I don't know there is a level of wealth beyond Rolex. And you know what? They are really onto something. They market Luxury. In Europe they are way more obtuse about it. They actually call goods Luxury soap or Luxury chocolate. The word Luxury itself gets attached as if it is some sort of proof of quality; a ticket to a parallel universe where there is no war or poverty all for a $3.50 cup of chai.

Did I mention one of my undergraduate degrees was in philosophy? I can’t help thinking about all this when Christmas is nearly upon us. For me that has always been a time when I have come face to face with the fact that instead of buying my ticket into the safe oblivion of the parallel universe, I should have been saving that money for stocking stuffers.

National Novel Writing Month = Blogaholic Binge Month!

If you haven't heard, November is National Novel Writing Month. Alert the press and check it out at http://www.nanowrimo.org !

I am signed up. How hard can it be to write 50,000 words in one month? In all my free time between 3am and 5am when I am lying there awake because of 4 years of Ellie’s conditioning I could be so much more productive. It’s quiet then, no one will interrupt me, ahem, meaning Dave! Why is it that I find it impossible to tune out his voice? He is so much better at tuning me out than I am him – it’s so not fair. But I am working on it. All good married people need to be able to control their psychic space, right!?

Anyway, this is the perfect opportunity to really get my creative sensibilities into high gear. It’ll be like boot camp for out of shape writers. It’s great for someone like me who prefers to write in fragments versus full sentences because they are truly NOT concerned with quality but quantity. Hooray ! I have found my people.

I have always wanted to write a novel and here is my chance. The title of my novel is, Things You Can’t Say To My Face. If you want to be one of my “writing buddies” let me know and I will add you to my list.

I heard about this amazing opportunity to procrastinate getting on with my real work through Laid Off Dad. He is one of the best writers on the web. He routinely uses words like “leitmotif” and “oeuvre” that I am forced to look up because of my startlingly poor French vocabulary. While it's not clear if he is going to try to crank out 50,000 French root words in November, he does plan to participate in NaBloWriMo - National Blog Writing Month, “... just to see how badly I (LOD) can gum up the Interwebs with unfiltered blather”. On that count, because I am a far worse writer, I think I can way, way out blather him.

He references NaBloWriMo via Mrs. Kennedy at Fussy who is encouraging everyone to put some wind into gray November by blogging every day. For the other Blogaholics out there, have at it. Indulge in your addiction and write, write, write. Mrs. Kennedy has graciously designed some really cool write with a gun to your head logos. There is even one featuring Yoda, but it will only be available for a limited time (until George Lucas’s team of copy write lawyers raid her home, abduct her and take down Fussy dot org). So get em while you can.

Again, if you want to be my writing buddy, let me know.
Enjoy!

Flogging

Once again it’s almost midnight and my husband and I are still blogging. This wit fest of a post came to me as I was shutting down my computer and whisper-yelling at Dave, “We have to go to bed – now! Ellie will be up in three hours!” We have spent the evening semi apart, me at my desk in the drafty front room / office / unused but sadly expectant 7’X5’ art studio and he at the kitchen table. We run back and forth to take a look at each others latest comments that were moderated successfully into the blogosphere. We discuss WordPress templates and the merits of Biz Stone’s book, Who Let the Blogs Out? Great book but; what were his parents thinking?

We are shamefully geeky. TICK, TOCK, TICK, TOCK ROUND THE CLOCK, STILL BLOGGING AWAY. Blogging, though easy, fun and the very thing that is going to deliver us from the long, low-lit New England Winter, is, quite simply - ADDICTIVE!

Biz claims it makes you smarter and that it’s about being in the moment. I agree. Being in the moment is the essence of blogging. I wrote my master’s thesis about this being in the moment, time stopping crap and can tell you it’s called Flow. One of the main side effects of Flow is that it feels great. Your self-efficacy rises; your mind is optimally engaged. It’s a tiptoe on the fine line between stress and boredom.

However, since I began blogging I have gained a whole new perspective on Flow. Or maybe I should call it Flog or Flogging for the new phenomenon of being in the Flow whilst blogging…hmmm. You read it here first. Flogging. Ok – actually that means to whip someone… well, if the shoe fits…

Anyway, I discovered that when you are actually in the moment, time goes by way faster than if you are worrying about the future or pining for the past. It’s such a bummer. When I finally get the knack of being in the moment I run out of time to do it for long!

But is this not the essence of addiction? Time spent with the drug of choice, or your blog, is never enough. When you are not imbibing your drug of choice you are thinking about the next time you will. For example, since I started my blog I have had to stop what I was doing to capture a funny thought that will turn into some witty post and in doing so the 73 minutes, 13 seconds, and 12 nanoseconds that Ellie naps vanishes before you can say, “Publish My Post”. It’s just outright irresponsible. Instead of looking for work, honing my experience summary, responding to requests for lunch with people who could potentially hire me, I am thinking about how to make interesting and funny comments on my life. Yes, my life, which is getting more myopic by the moment.

Some humorless fascist once told me that I was my own biggest fan. Damn him, he’s right. My blog, where posts go to die, is a one-way ticket. I laugh at my own posts but I don’t know if anyone else does. So does that mean I am sitting here making up things to amuse myself? Yikes, the thought of it and implications are reverberating to the depth of my over educated psychologist psyche. If anyone out there want’s to start a 12-step program for obsessive bloggers, please, contact me immediately! Isn’t that the first step? Admitting there’s a problem?

Hello, my name is Kathyrn and I’m a Blogaholic.

Blog Envy or Thank You Lissylou!

Thank you, thank you Lissylou for saving me from the void! Ok - it's official. I have had my first comment from a person I did not coerce, at least not directly. My sweet husband was the first to comment, but only because I threatened the usual things a wife threatens her husband with when she wants him to do something for her. You know - castration, over starching the shirts, getting a boy toy. And my dear friend commented because I asked him to. Ok, so I was a little desperate as you can see from my Pitter Patter post.

Lissylou you are proof that Ryn Tales is not the black hole of the web as I had feared. Though it may still be like Pluto – not quite a real planet. Ryn Tales - not quite a real blog. (Hey, does this mean I have blog envy?)

Seriously, you made my day! Thanks for the words of encouragement.

P.S. I was joking about threatening my husband. I have no idea how to starch a shirt.

P.S.S. However, if any reader would like to comment on the process I would be better for the knowing. It couldn't hurt. You never know when the angry ghost of some fictional TV character like June Cleaver might try to invade your body just to get in some cathartic domestic tasks for old times sake.