I Think I'm Feeling Mutinous Against Me

It is possible that I have crippled my hands. I’m not sure. Some sick part of my brain decided that I have been underwhelmed lately and suggested that while I was making some cute felt barrettes for my little girl I may as well make a bunch more and start a shop on Etsy. So a good portion of my “extra” time this week went to brainstorming designs and cutting felt and stitching it together. My poor fibromyalgia ridden hands are so not thanking me.

When I awoke this morning my knuckles were so stiff and swollen that when I tried to wash some dishes a couple of hours later I kept dropping the silverware, and my fingers held the sponge so loosely that I was having a difficult time actually scrubbing anything.

I have a lot of work left to do, as I have only perfected one design so far. That’s not very much. At any rate, I hope to have my shop up and running by the beginning of November. Once the whole situation is pretty well under control I am hoping to add other merchandise as well- stuffed animals, maybe blankets, we’ll see what else comes into my maniacal brain. While you all are waiting for my great and wonderful storefront to go up (snort!) check out the total amazingness that is skunkboy creatures. I can’t get over Katie’s animals. They’re great. Really. Check it out. They’ll make you smile. Seriously. Click the link.

I Have Been Awarded

I received my first award for blogging. Believe it or not, it was not an award for "Most Boring Blog" nor was it titled "She Thinks She Can Write?" So needless to say, I am pretty excited. Thanks to FawnDear for bestowing this award upon me and my humble little blog. Fawn is a creative seamstress, mother of six kiddos, and inspires me to get off my butt and get to work with her tales of decluttering. She says, "Faith...shows her creative artistic style through her writing. I'm so waiting for her to get discovered, be offered a book deal and then let me pay her a bucket-load for a signed copy. Several times I catch myself just wishing she would go on and on and not stop. I love her talent for putting two words together and not sounding like some hick like me." I have three things to say about that: it is so nice to have such lovely things said about me, I really don't think she sounds like a hick, and my husband sure doesn't wish that I would go on and on and not stop. Arte Y Pico Award

Just Me

It’s late. I should be in bed with my eyes closed and my brain shut off, stretched out on the very edge of the edge of the bed with my sweet little girl pressed against me. But the house is quiet. There is the stillness that comes only with the night, when the steady deep breathing of my children assures me they’re asleep and the world outside my window seems quiet and untroubled, not reverberating with highway traffic and people shouting up and down the street. This stillness beckons to me- “Enjoy me, bask in silence.” So I do. I read. I hear the sound of the pages as they rub my fingers in turning. I write, and commune with the click clack of the keyboard. I plan. I create. I dream. And when I finally fall exhausted into my bed and pull the covers up to my chin it seems I have only one eye closed before the sounds of the morning trickle into my ears. Alarm clocks, a toddler in search of the toilet, the coffee pot gurgling down in the kitchen. My body aches with tiredness. I want to finish my sleep. But I am needed, so I drag myself out of bed and wonder, was it worth it, staying up so late to taste some freedom? Most days, I must say “yes.” For a few moments I was just me.

The Dawning of Autumn

Fall is here. The still air has that crisp snappiness to it that makes it feel blustery outside when not a blade of grass is stirring. Soon the sound of crunching leaves will articulate every footfall. Before long, the morning chill will necessitate that the oil furnace be cranked up and we will be able to feel our hard earned dollars escaping from the floor vents to wrap us in a thin layer of warmth.

Already I have had to resist the urge to listen to Christmas music. Mind you, I haven’t been able to resist it every time. There’s just something so comforting about listening to Bing and Dean croon. I can’t give in to regular listening for at least another month though. If I start listening to “Marshmallow World” and “Silent Night” now I’ll be sick to death of them by Christmas.

Not only that, but when I hear the strains of “Santa Baby” it makes me want to bake cookies. Lots of cookies. And then I forsake all other food groups and just eat cookies, and eat them and eat them. By the time Thanksgiving rolls around I won’t even be able to eat a roll. It’s a vicious cycle.

How the Spider Almost Killed Us- Part 2

Having been subjected to the agitated nerves of my husband for a too-long period of time, I noticed my own nerves were becoming a little frayed. I didn’t mind the company of the spider when I knew exactly where it was, but for some moments I failed to be able to locate its position and that made me a little uneasy. Now that neither of us had the intruder in our sights Sean’s agitation grew to a feverish pitch and he began flailing about in his seat while firmly gripping the steering wheel betwixt his hands. “Thrash around really fast! Thrash around hard! If it’s on you it’ll get squished! COME ON!”

As nicely as I could I informed him that I would not be giving myself whiplash on account of a bug, and that if he didn’t calm himself and focus on not killing us all I was liable to commence shouting. Although highly offended at my lack of respect for his orders, he settled down enough to regain control of the car and his senses and I went back to the task of locating our missing friend. During this time my left bum cheek began to get a tad bit numb, as I had rolled all of my weight onto it in an unconscious attempt to lean away from the spider’s last known location.

At long last the spider’s whereabouts were once again known to us. Earlier in our voyage I had determined not to smoosh the spider because I did not want it falling from its perch on the windshield into my lap or my hair while in the throes of death. But that was a good twelve minutes previous and our health and well-being did not seem to be in such jeopardy then as they were now, what with all of the reckless nighttime driving and the delicate drizzling rain that was now glossifying the roadway and rendering our trip even more treacherous.

I kept a close eye on the spider while I riffled through the glove compartment in search of a napkin to smother it with. I made sure that my aim was good and true and I smote the spider with my mighty napkin against the windowpane. My victory was short lived. I was now belted to my seat with my right arm stuck straight out in front of me and holding a folded napkin against the windshield. If I moved my arm the spider was likely to fall amongst my hairs where it would stay, impervious to washing, until its body completed the cycle of decay. This would never do.

After some deliberation I thought that my best strategy would be to slowly slide the napkin down until it hovered above the dashboard. Then I could gently pull the napkin away from the glass and the spider carcass would fall harmlessly onto the console. My body tried to slink away from my hand as the napkin squeaked its way down the glass. Down, down, down, until I could finally pull my hand away from the window. Ever so gingerly I retracted my arm back toward my body. I looked into the napkin. There was nothing there.

Great. I glanced back at the windshield and tried to tune out the screeching coming from the opposing seat. There was definitely some spider guts glistening in the moonlight up there. If the thing wasn’t dead yet it would be soon, and in its current state the spider couldn’t possibly do much harm.

The banshee in the driver’s seat was at it again, “It’s still alive! It’s still alive! I think it’s crawling on meeeeeeee!” “Listen, you,” I replied, “if its gutless body is around here somewhere it is most likely on me!” to which I received a long diatribe on the correct method for killing spiders and that inept people like me should not be allowed to kill them. Even it its death that stupid spider was a force to be feared and reckoned with.

We arrived home at long last. The car was parked, the engine turned off, and I opened my car door. As I exited the vehicle the small body of a dying spider tucked in its legs and rolled off of my lap onto the seat I had just occupied. It was on me after all. And my husband, all six-foot-two-inches of him, started shrieking again and yelping directives on how to properly dispose of the mostly-dead spider. Using the napkin of almost-death he plucked the spider from the seat, squished it firmly in his hand, and placed the napkin into his pocket.

A short time later, when Sean put his hand into his pocket, he suddenly remembered that the dead spider and its napkin style coffin were still there. He immediately began the ants-in-my-pants dance with a few shouts and screams thrown in. He jiggled his way over to the garbage can where the scary spider was finally laid to rest. I was never so glad to be rid of a spider in my life. Except for that one time a giant man-eating spider found its way into the entertainment unit. I was pretty glad to be rid of that one too.

How the Spider Almost Killed Us- Part 1

It has been hypothesized that perhaps some fatal car accidents are the result of creepy crawly insects. A person is driving along, hopefully obeying the rules of the road, hopefully not straying too far from the posted speed limit, when a spider is spotted somewhere inside the vehicle scurrying along, its eight legs carrying it closer and closer to the driver of the vehicle.

A part of me has always thought that this, although potentially a good theory, could only apply to those people who have a morbid fear of arachnids that sends them into an immediate state of mind numbing, paralyzing panic and possibly even a coma. Boy was I wrong.

My husband has an interesting relationship with all things buggy, as I shared here. He doesn’t seem to mind them when he is out of doors, but when in a confined space with insects and spiders his mind begins to plays tricks on him and he begins to have fits.

About ten seconds into our fifteen-minute drive home from church on Saturday night, Sean pointed a tremulous finger toward our windshield and demanded, “Is that inside?” I stared through the darkness and concentrated on the city bus in front of us toward which I thought he pointed and tried to make sense of the question. “Is that inside? I think it is! It’s inside!” he declared in a voice that was clearly agitated and full of fear. “Don’t you see it? Right there! Are you blind?”

I don’t appreciate being shouted at. So I fixed him with a glare that was wasted in the shadows of night, told him that I could make no sense of his gibbering, and said that when his powers of communication returned I would be more than happy to listen to his troubles. He made a noise I had never heard before, something between a yelp and a groan, and finally made me understand that we were trapped in a moving vehicle at the mercy of a roving spider.

How he saw the thing in the first place, I’ll never know. It was light brown in color with a leg span that could only have straddled a dime. Perhaps my husband is possessed of x-ray vision or something; that would explain the sly grins he sometimes gives me when I am covered head to toe in a sweat suit. At any rate, once his eyes caught sight of that spider they weren’t letting it go.

Unfortunately, following the weaving path of a spider and attempting to operate a motor vehicle at the same time is not easy. Or safe. Sean was so busy squirming from the touch of imaginary spiders and shrieking, “Do you see it? Do you see it? Where’d it go?” that the fact that the car didn’t go careening off of the side of the road is a miracle. It really is.

The eight-legged beast would occasionally wander over to my side of the windshield. When my husband received news that his adversary had traversed away from him he would sigh audibly, “Oh, okay.” As if to say that the world was a shinier, happier place now that his wife would be receiving the death-bite in his place. He can be so sweet sometimes.

I’ll put a stop to this nonsense, I thought to myself. I clutched the church bulletin in my hand and resolved to nudge the spider out of the window with it. I had maintained the hope that once close enough to the open window the spider would be whisked away on the wind, never to be seen or heard from again. Much to my chagrin, instead of being sucked out of the vehicle into oblivion, the wind blew the spider back into the car.

The Power of "Uh-Oh"

Learning new words and phrases is fun. Especially when you get to facilitate saying them by performing some sort of function. “Uh-oh,” is especially enjoyable. It means that you can throw food on the floor, configure your face into a look of innocence and eradicate your guilt by saying “uh-oh.” Just think of all the possibilities that open up to the person who can say, “Uh-oh” and bat their eyelashes at the same time.