Help! Stop Me Before I Go Nuts!

For some weird, compulsive reason I feel the need to completely overwhelm my life with projects and work. I wish I could hang out at the nail salon and be a Botox Barbie like my ex-boyfriend's wife probably does, but I just can't bring myself to do it. Maybe with that much silicone in you your brain shuts off and it doesn't bother you anymore. I'm completely free of silicone at the moment, so I'm self-destructing in other ways.

I just finished three knitting projects and am working on a smocked dress for Tinkerbell. It was supposed to be done by next Saturday for her baptism, but it has been the project from hell. I've had to pleat the thing FIVE times, and then one of the pleating threads broke and pulled halfway out of the dress. Argghh. And of course I'm planning on making a matching dress for her American Girl doll. Smocked, french seams, the whole works. And I'm supposed to be working on another dress as part of a SAGA course (Smocking Arts Guild) that I need to mail in for grading. Of course, I would have to start it first. Details, details. Plus Sweetie's Jack Sparrow costume for Halloween that I didn't do last year.

I need to inventory my food storage and be ready for a massive week-long dry-pack canning session at my currently filthy house in July. It can't be filthy then, though, because that would be gross. Especially since my sister-in-law and others will be bringing their stuff to dry-pack at my then spotless house. Never mind that I'm getting Kitty Boy and Sweetie ready for a Scout campout this week, Tinkerbell's baptism (and people probably coming by my currently filthy house), Sweetie's Colorado conference, Girls' Camp for Elvira, and DrummerBoy & Sweetie's two week trip to Europe. Mom wants me to fly home for five days in August, which would overlap with Caro's birthday. But I need to fly right home for Kitty Boy's birthday and then get him and Sweetie off to Boston for a week. Then everyone goes back to school (Note to Self: School Shopping!) and Drummer Boy has his birthday. No La Push this year I'm afraid. So sad about that. But Elvira and I will still go get "Breaking Dawn" at the midnight release. That will be my early birthday present to myself. I can lose myself in blood-thirsty vampires and werewolves for 24 hours. Who am I kidding--I'll probably stay up all night and have it done in seven.

Forgot to mention picking four currant bushes and canning about 30 pints of jelly. And I'm doing peaches, pears, and tomatoes for the first time. Did I tell you I just bought a dehydrator so I can turn all our grapes into raisins and dry our own herbs?

Just so we're clear on how pathological I am, I just applied to work 30 hours a week at the kids' school, volunteer in their GT program after school, organize an after-school merit badge program at the school, and retake Stats 221 at BYU so I can apply to grad school in February after taking the GRE. Oh no! Forgot to study for the GRE! I need drugs.

Help me!

Want To See Our Yard?

I found pictures of our yard online from the 2006 Hidden Garden Benefit. It looked so nice! That was before we lost the globe willow and the apple trees in the backyard that pretty much destroyed the landscaping back there. Now we're going to lose the peach tree. So depressing. But, it has given us room to expand the garden by two 5x10 raised beds, a better composting station, and hopefully a potting shed/greenhouse in a year or so. So click on the link and we're the first six pictures on the 2006 photos and you'll at least see what the front and the vegetable garden looks like.

Also, if you're one of the lucky few who knows who I really am, you can pull up our address on Google Maps and see a picture of the house/garden. Isn't my Sweetie a talented guy?

Sleeping

Maxfield Parrish, The Sleeping Beauty, 1912


I haven't been sleeping well for months--years, really. It has been particularly bad these last four or five months. I average about three-four hours a night. The funny thing is that once school (read "job") ended on Friday, I have been racking up the sleep hours like crazy. I went into Tinkerbell's room yesterday to look for laundry and woke up an hour and a half later on her bed. After getting Sweetie and the boys off to a Scout thing on Saturday, I folded laundry for about 20 minutes, then woke up three hours later. I LOVE this. I feel absolutely no guilt whatsoever about passing out cold. I appreciate sleep so much more (don't look at the time I posted this). In fact, I'm going to bed now. Good night!