All the misery was abated today for a pre-father’s day bit of fun at the grandparents house; continued with some somber father’s day cake at my parent’s house.  Followed by the most amazing sunset on the drive home.  It was a good day today.  

All the hoop-la has ended all the celebrating and nervous energy has been spent.  We are currently sitting in the living room among boxes and boxes of boxes that were delivered today by UPS.  All that my daughter was in New York is now home on the West coast.  

Yes, she is home and she is miserable and it isn’t fun!  My son is home too and he is bored and wanting to get his first job, he is miserable as well.  My mother is dealing with my father and she is miserable too.  My dad doesn’t know who or where he is so that makes him just miserable!  My husband is in a kind of limbo, so he is just a bit miserable.  It is hard when all you have to do is wait.  We have nothing more to do but wait on other people to do their jobs.  I have always been told that stress increases when you have no control over a situation; this is one of those times.  I believe that the trick here will be to not take it out on one another, not to be say evil and nasty things while we wait. 

I did this, I am the all knowing mother, always controlling, always in the background.  Sometimes I am completely miffed as to why or how I created children that can't even do the simplest task without informing me or seeking my approval before they partake.  I see it now but I still don't understand how I was able to do this so thoroughly.  Oh my!

What is Dilemma number five?  Perhaps the final hurdle will be to find me.  I always state that I am a daughter, sister, friend, lover, wife and mother and then I like to state that sometimes I am even myself.  What that is exactly isn’t truly defined as of yet; who am I?  My entire reason for starting this blog was to try and define who I am.  I felt that at this point in my life I should know more about who I am and I realized that I don’t.  I thought that by writing words and sending them out into the cyber world that somehow the cosmos would help guide me along and indeed I have received my first comment; there are people out there.  What do other women feel at this phase of their lives?  Enquiring minds want to know :)  

I did just realize that the daughter, sister, friend, lover, wife, mother, me comment is the key.  It is all about perfecting or rather being satisfied with those phases of your life.  If I had a career of some sort I would have stuck that in there as well, but I have been a domestic goddess most of my adult life.  Not that I do not want a career because I would love to be something other than the aforementioned titles.  Maybe I'll think about this some more.  

What does one do when the chaos ends?  I wish I didn’t have an answer for that one but I do; one just finds another crazy issue to deal with.  Now the daughter needs a job so she can pay off school loans because we certainly cannot help her.  She is having a little confidence issue which i believe is part of the college process in fact that moment has already been dealt with and her confidence has been restored; see how fast that happened!  

I see her going from one extreme to the next as she wades her way through.  In fifteen days she is a graduate with financial responsibilities.  Because of the nature of her field she is required to have a website and portfolio which directly reflects her.  The fist attempt was a bit of a struggle and the feed back wasn’t necessarily positive so she panicked and emotions over flowed.  I think she was trying to make something that reflected her earlier work and it didn’t blend in with the type of projects she was now doing.  All the turmoil leads to an arranged meeting with her professor and some well placed encouragement and we are moving forward with new reverence.  In the last minutes everything is being torn down and rebuilt and according to her professor she can reapply to every company that had previously rejected her; the list of those companies isn’t long but she was disheartened by those that did.  Today is a positive day and one which she accomplished quite a bit.  I am excited to see what she pulls out of her hat this time.  The little that I did see impressed me. 

Finding the job is my forte and I feel like I’ve been activated, called in to once again do my thing.  I have been doing some espionage work around her professional accounts linking her up with various professionals that I believe will help her find a good job.  I have looked over and shortened her cover letter.  It is perfect and describes exactly what she is going for, who she is and what she wants.  She can use that when she gets everything else up and running.  I hope to use this opportunity to teach her how to track leads and turn them into opportunities.  Something clicks inside of me and I assume this Sherlock kind of image, makes me smile anyway.  Did mention that I blur the line between my life and hers?

Dilemma number one was finding a place to bloom a place to root and we have done that.  It was an incredible world-wind but we did do it; I love this house.  Number two was getting through the job issues for the husband.  He needed to find his happy place and I believe we have done that; he can retire from this company.  We will never be rich but we shall be happy.  Number three is getting our daughter started in a new city with a new job.  Number four will be working with our son.  He too needs to find his way.

I wonder what number five is??

Another wonderful day in southern California; It didn't start out that way but it did eventually get there.  

Crisis adverted and smooth sailing from noon on.  


Our daughter is the creative type and as I mentioned before, at times I have trouble finding that line between her life and my own.  When she is feeling stress and having confidence issues, I feel them too.  I believe it is a process and a part of being so creative.  You would think that she would primarily be a left brain kind of person which she is but she also thinks way too much and as a result gets in her own way.  She is aware of this and yet it never fails that little Miss. "I hate drama" becomes the biggest drama queen ever!  


I was never one of those mothers that goo-gooed over their kids; talking in that high pitched loud obnoxious voice going over the top to explain one of life's little mysteries.  I talked to them like I would want to be talked to and I always kept it real.  When they were older I never held back my honest opinion and not because of some parenting book i had read because honestly I never remember reading any.  I am just that kind of person.  My daughter has said that I adequately prepared her for life because when it came time to critique projects in school some of those kids would curl up and cry.  Those kids received a trophy no matter what, right, all kids get trophies cause they are all important and gave it their best!  I say, bullshit!  I am laughing because that is a pet peeve of my husbands; he always felt that kids should learn how to lose, it would make them want to win more.  All children participating in team sports here in the United States receive a trophy no matter what.  After twenty some odd years of being told the sun shines out your ass, it makes it hard to know how to deal with criticism.  My daughter never cried, she just moved on and did what she needed to do.  I say bravo baby!

What an incredible day to be selfish and humbled by life.  <3  Slight breeze flowing over my shoulders as I toil in the garden; it is an amazing day to be just us.  

It is a continuous theme in my life to experience exact opposite feelings at the same time.  Yesterday was exhilarating because I was able to do so much yard work and not die.  I visit my parents every Wednesday and Thursday; I go to help them with whatever they need and to give my mom a break.  Two giant trees removed from the yard equals a giant mess to clean up.  I arrived at ten in the morning and did not stop until after five; every part of me covered in dirt.  It is incredible that I was able to do as much as I did and I was pretty happy about that fact.  It was also evident that my body is more than a half century old; because everything hurt.  I hate being reminded that I am this old and that things are starting to break down.

  It is interesting that most people only consider that perhaps they should take better care of themselves when there has already been damage.  Like most people I am thinking that I need to be kinder to myself because I can see the future and it isn't a good one.  Note to self, better find a way to heat our swimming pool so I can start exercising more and better start eating better so I can get up off my knees.  There ya go, every day is a learning day even at my age.