I can be over the top somtimes, especially when my veneer of patience is scratched a bit.

Like, when an employee tells me to stay in Aisle 29 and someone will come help me find the plumbing supplies I've been charged with purchasing for a friend's dad, and then no one comes. And I get pipe lube on my fingers because I was fiddling with a piece I ended up not needing.

I wondered how long I was supposed to wait in Aisle 29, but eventually I wandered. By the time I found the nearest employee, I was in a near panic.

"Somebody said they would come and then no one did and now I'm very overwhelmed standing looking at all these pipes and I have no idea which ones I need."

She helped me.

Last Thursday I stood in my eye doctor's office holding my broken pair of glasses.

"I really need a new pair of glasses - my dog chewed these - and I really need them soon." They had them to me the next day.

And today, standing in the Walmart vision center holding my broken glasses.

"My dog chewed my glasses and I need a new pair of frames, but I don't want to pay a lot of money for them in case he does it again. This is just really not in my budget today."

I paid $18 for a pair of frames she popped the lenses into.

I was very mad when I woke up at 5 a.m. to *him* chewing on my 3-day old frames that I thought I had put out of reach last night. So mad that I wanted to cry, but so mad that I couldn't. So mad that I was silent to him, but so mad I was screaming to myself: You idiot!

I wished I could have relived the previous 8 hours, but instead I told myself, "Stress enables ingenuity. There's nothing you can do about it tonight. Put your ass back in bed and sleep for two more hours. You can duct tape them together and then get a new pair."

So that's what I did.

I guess I've always had a flare for the extreme and melodramatic.

So when my patience is wearing thin with kids these days and their attitudes about life and relationships, I say that when I have children, I will convert to the brotherhood of the Amish.

Some common refutions I hear:

"First thing to go is your cell phone and no more Internet or Hulu Plus."
"You would have to make your own clothes and only 3 colors."
"Say hello to bonnets and strings."

All to which I smile and mumble, "If only you knew..."

"You'd probably have to get rid of your dogs and have 10 kids."
"You'd have to do everything your husband told you to do."

And then I start reconsidering my rash conversaion.

Really all I want is to work my kids' asses off and make them grow food. And help me build shit and not become so infatuated with materialistic mumbo jumbo that they don't know what a hummingbird sounds like or that blackberries grow in the wild (and you can pick them!)

Who knows. Maybe by the time I'm fruitful and multiplying, our society would have worked into such an automated frenzy that we fry all circuits and have to return to foraging, or our own version of the Hunger Games.

In any case, patience is a virtue I have to work for.
And when I can't be patient anymore I can be over the top sometimes.

this new hobby I miiiggghhtt have

I know. I said it here. That I'm not one of those crazy people who photograph birds and then documents them.

But wouldn't you know it?

That's exactly what I did today.

Well, not the whole day. A girl has to work, you know.

But between cups of coffee and pacing while writing,

And digging my dogs out of my neighbor's visitor's car and assuring her neither of them would hurt her or her children,

And apologizing when one of them jumped on her, and realizing I was not wearing a bra at the time of our encounter,

I captured my guests outside my kitchen window.

these days

These days are peaceful days.
Yes, there is uncertainity around me, and yes, there is the sadness.

But these days {my days} are peaceful.

Tuck and Skye and I are settling into our routine of being a family of three. Someone recently told me they had no time to watch TV because they had four kids. I wanted to say, "I have no time to watch TV. I have two dogs and a newspaper that publishes 365 days a year," but I didn't. I get her point. Unless you've had two dogs and a newspaper that publishes 365 days a year, you probably wouldn't get mine.

My peaceful days start in the Cottage and very early. Or, at least early for me. The dogs and I are usually up right as the sun's rising and every morning we walk a mile. I get that out of the way before the coffee's brewed.

By the time we're done, they're exhausted and laid out panting on the kitchen floor. I brew the coffee, maybe sweep the floor, but always check on my little garden. Maybe I'll water. Or maybe I'll wait till the evening.

A couple hours after my day starts, I'm off to work. Off to the swirling newsroom, as I like to call it. And then I'm home again.

Home to walk with the dogs again.
Home to train them.
Home to read a book and write a book review.
Home to drink a beer, catch up on emails and Facebook.
Home to check on the garden again. Maybe water. Maybe not.
Home to sleep.

These are my days in a comfortable ebb and flow, just the way I like it. Organic. Peaceful. Robust. Simple.

Peaceful. 

the sadness

Last night was a crying night.
I didn't intend to cry, not like it's something that's always planned, but it didn't feel like the crying-kind-of-night at the beginning of it.

There was a tipping point, an obscure thing, and than one tear fell, and another. Before long, I couldn't stop them.

I cried until I couldn't breathe through my nose.
I cried till 1 a.m. and cried until I eventually fell asleep. I woke up and my eyelids were translucent and puffy from so much crying.

They were grieving tears.
They were sad tears.
They were tears I'd kept inside for a month.
They were tears that needed to fall.

So fall they did.

Today I just feel empty, summarized in one word.

Sad.

Book Review: You Have No Idea

In the middle of the swirling dysfunction of my own family, it's comforting to know we are not alone. Vanessa Williams didn't always listen to her mother; Helen Williams was emotionally distant and yelled sometimes. In a single word, they are normal, and in the 282 pages of the pair's new release, "You Have No Idea," they exemplify family disputes, difficult years (not just days), and respect that powers through.

From the first chapter, the reader is made aware of the scandal that engulfed Vanessa Williams in the last six weeks of her reign as Miss America in 1984, and her subsequent relinguishing of the crown. It's a flagrant move to hit head-on the star's notorious scandal and to dispell rumors that have probably circulated for years. It also sets the defining tone of the book: Mom might know best, but sometimes we have to figure it out on our own.

In a flip-flop narrative style, Vanessa takes the lead in the book with her story, and Helen inserts her opinion in the sassy language Vanessa describes her in. Some scenarios in Vanessa's life Helen didn't realize until she read them; she's very honest about that.

Overall, the book is an easy read (I read it in a day and a half), and it's inspiring. It illustrates the fact that there is not a single perfect family, but respect and love can mend relationships. And, at the end of the day, we are family. It's inspiring to read about Vanessa's goals (described by herself) and see how, in the course of the book, she achieved them. In what feels like candid transparency, she admits when she was wrong, how she fixed it, what she learned and how she moved on.

It's something we could all learn to do more of.

"This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own."

I'm thankful

I'm thankful for dogs who are always happy to see me.
I'm thankful for hushed conversations in the break room.
I'm thankful for beer that makes me sleepy.
I'm thankful for books.

I'm thankful for friends who close the distance.
I'm thankful for friends who work 10 steps from me.
I'm thankful for dogs who return from the river.
I'm thankful for text messages.

I'm thankful for family, even when they hurt.
I'm thankful for fulfillment in my job.
I'm thankful for new glasses on the way.
I'm thankful for a new cell phone.

I'm thankful for all things beautiful, small, unsightly.
I'm thankful for life's detours and redirections.
I'm thankful for goals and power to achieve them.
I'm thankful for faith.

Big boys still need to be crated

Every dog has caused me some sort of consternation, much like I'm sure every child does a parent.

For three days, Jada peed inside.
From my position in the cart, I would rake my hand over items in the grocery store aisle and make them all come tumbling off the shelves.

Marley ate a piece of nearly every Victoria's Secret bra I owned.
For the umpteenth time, my mother left our full cart of groceries and took my screaming self home.

Skye had a habit of running away and killing sheep.
"Holly, don't step on the floor...mommy just mopped it." And my toes would cross over and my eyes would defiantly meet hers.

When I got out of the shower Monday morning, Tuck snuck by, but I could see what was in his mouth. My cell phone.

I yelled.

Last night I fell asleep and woke up to the sound of Tuck chewing on...something.

My glasses.

And wasn't it just yesterday I told a reporter, "At least it was my cell phone, and not my glasses."

I yelled and picked up the pieces (oh, so many pieces). And I tried to put them back together as best I could, but I'm missing an ear-bar-thingie and half a lense.

But I can see, kind of. At least enough to drive to my eye doctor and get new glasses ASAP. And until new glasses, I've got enough pieces on my face to see my computer screen.

So, maybe one day, I'll be able to reflect on Tuck's chewing days with humor and a thing in the past.