There are many reasons I want the adoption to hurry up and just come to an end but the most important reason right at this moment is my health.

I think we’re all pretty certain that at least 85% of the problem I have with insomnia is due to the adoption. I’m having more frequent bouts with anxiety attacks and for the last three weeks or so, anything I eat makes me nauseous. In fact, the mere idea of eating is disturbing at times.

I keep wrenching my back and now I’m frequently doing something to knock the ribs out of alignment in my chest which causes serious pain and makes it difficult to breath at times. At least I have an excellent chiropractor, there’s something to be grateful for!

Not knowing when the “big event” may take place is unnerving to me, as is the fact that at the last minute the real mother can decide she wants to keep him. We have a million things to do in the house to get ready for him but I seem to be paralyzed and unable to begin. Sure, the chance she’ll want him back is small, but it exists and if I were to get the house all fixed up for him and then the adoption tanks, I think I’d snap. But somehow, we still have to do it, I have to suck it down.

Well, that’s it for today. The anxiety has been draining all of my creativity and I’ve had nothing to say for days now. See, there’s another reason this adoption needs to pick up the pace, if it goes on much longer my poor blog will become completely neglected. I even missed the self-portrait challenge this week, that bummed me out.

Oh well, I’m sure this will all be over soon enough, right? It’s going on four years of my life down the toilet and I’m ready for it to stop.

Tired of watching Christmas videos? Here’s a little something different to brighten your day.

You may remember me previously discussing the goose that a neighbor dresses up and keeps on their front porch. Well I’ve been waiting and waiting for the owner to change it’s outfit and it finally has a new costume for winter.

It has never worn the same thing for this long before and I was beginning to think that after it was broken, the goose lost it’s appeal to the owner. But alas, she’s sporting a lovely cardinal suit and won’t have to feel left out for the holidays any longer.

My dear associate just ground up a shot glass in the disposal.

Ooo. That can’t be good.

I thought it was a good time to provide some updates on the various topics I’ve discussed over the last few months.

Kitchen remodeling:
We are still waiting for the contractor to finish the job. He needs to replace the crown molding, install the basement door and a few other minor fixes here and there. The jerk keeps making appointments to come over here and then never shows up. We would just find someone else to do it, however, it turned out that when he tiled the floor, one of his assistants washed all the grout down the drain in the back yard which then hardened and blocked up the pipe. It cost $200 to have the pipe cleared and we want the contractor to pay for this, which I think is only fair.

Adoption:
The latest estimate we’ve been given is that we are 2-3 months away from completion. We are at step 11 on the adoption process checklist.

Art:
I have actually managed to start a painting which I have been working on for about a month and a half now. It is making me so happy to be up in the studio playing with my paints again.

This painting is for bluberd’s big fat 40th birthday and it is taking so long to paint I don’t know if I’ll have it done in time. Here’s a little snippet to whet your appetite:

Insomnia:
I still don’t have the ability to fall asleep on my own. I read somewhere that you are considered to have insomnia if it takes you a half hour to fall asleep. Ha! That’s a laugh. If it took me a half hour to fall asleep I’d think I had narcolepsy.

I continued taking the Lunesta all month even though it still takes me an hour or so to fall asleep and the taste is disgusting. It’s better than staring at the ceiling all night. I just refilled the prescription and this new batch seems like it is a lot stronger. I took the first one Monday night and within 15 minutes I was in such a drug haze that I couldn’t walk right. The next morning I woke to find that I went to bed in what I had been wearing all day, luckily I was lucid enough to take off my hiking shoes first. (and no, I wasn’t drinking)

Thanksgiving flood:
We received the check from our home insurance and now have to find the time to get yet another contractor over here to quote for repairing the damage. I am not looking forward to this.

I guess the only thing this post is missing is a song.
Here’s the latest mp3 I’ve been torturing your painting with bluberd:

It’s been a few days since my last post. I’ve been busy with Christmas stuff and too much work and haven’t had much time to write. 

It always seems that this time of year is so stressful to me. It’s a lot of running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off and not much else.  I don’t think I’ve really been able to enjoy Christmas since I lived with my parents. The good old days when my only responsibility was getting presents for my family and a couple friends.

Looking back now I realize just how much my mother actually did during the holidays. She took care of everything—cooking, cleaning, decorating, baking, mailing presents, sending cards, wrapping presents, driving us around, going to holiday parties, playing Christmas carols on the piano—essentially creating a magical environment for everyone.

Now, I wasn’t an ingrate, I knew she made the house beautiful and baked more cookies than anyone could ever eat but I never realized just how much effort the whole “Christmas experience” actually took. I suppose I always just thought that’s what Christmas was, I had nothing to compare it with at the time and it always seemed so effortless to me. I’d go to school one day and come home to a winter wonderland—poof! For all I know she could have been bitching and moaning all day long. Maybe she had a nervous breakdown at the post office as she stood in the longest line she’d ever seen just like I do every year, but I doubt it. She just had everything under control and I’m pretty sure she also has super powers, which gives her an unfair advantage over mere mortals like myself.

Tonight I decided to calm down for a second. My associate is out of town on business and usually that would mean that I’d never stop working, but I forced myself to leave the office, put on a little Keely Smith and proceeded to have an unstressful and surprisingly pleasant evening. No swearing, no veins popping out of my forehead, no frantically trying to complete some client’s project. I just wrapped presents and put the lights on the tree.

I think I should call my mother tomorrow and express my gratitude and complete admiration of her tremendous abilities.

Visit the Self-Portrait Challenge for more “red” self-portraits.

To be overwhelmed, exhausted, stretched too thin and crumble under the frenzied pressure to buy buy buy. What a wonderful time of year it is indeed.

Continuing on with the Self-Portrait Challenge’s December theme of “red.”

I have no insightful stories, memories or inspirations for today’s portrait. It’s just red.

I went to two very different holiday parties this weekend and I just don’t know where to begin. I suppose I’ll have to start chronologically.

Friday, gathering number one, the ” 2nd Annual MamaCita Holiday Party” or as I think it should be renamed for next year: “The MamaCita Alcohol Extravaganza and Oh, Right, There’s Some Art For Sale Too” party.

I should start this by saying that I had only eaten one sandwich the whole day on Friday. Having given that disclaimer, I’m sure you know where the rest of this story is going. There’s no doubt that I’ll never be mistaken for a teetotaler and sometimes I have an evening where I just make that point abundantly clear—that was Friday.

Good grief, it is nights like that where I know I shouldn’t be allowed to drink publicly, or at least around people that don’t already know me. The impression I must give strangers…I don’t even want to know. I’ll be going along just fine with a normal, acceptable level of inebriation and then…whammo…I turn into the most loud, obnoxious sot know to mankind. The horror it must cause my poor associate.

She knows when this point is about to occur when she looks at me and notices that my face has changed. Evidently my eyes start to lose the ability to remain open on their own and I have to hoist my eyebrows up really high in order to see. It is at this “OH NO!” point when she realizes that she’s in for a bumpy ride.

I take comfort knowing that there were many people in worse condition than I was. I saw people walking into walls and sliding down stairs. I saw people who couldn’t negotiate the threshold of a door. I feel good knowing that I was still walking upright and had my bearings. Not that anyone will be reading this, but I do apologize to those who I began referring to based on their clothes. I guess I just couldn’t remember names and decided to make up nicknames according to your apparel. I am a jackass extraordinaire, so sorry. [Side note: I blame the hostess and the devil’s elixir she mixed up. Oh so tasty, but oh so evil. It is all your fault “scarf-belt.”]

Safe to say, I think I should remain locked in my attic for the rest of my life where people can visit me at their own risk.

Now, onto party number two. This was a holiday wine tasting event. I have a big weakness for the grape and didn’t need a repeat of Friday so I had planned in advance to be a good girl at this party. I poured myself only the smallest tastes of wine and never even got a buzz the whole night.

I always forget how interesting it is to be completely sober when others aren’t. What a treat it was to not be the evening’s entertainment, someone else stepped up to the plate and filled my shoes, and quite admirably might I add.

I can’t tell every story from the evening but there was one point when a bunch of us were gathered in the dining room sampling the white wines and appetizers when all conversation was brought to a halt by someone doing the worst high-pitched French imitation I’d ever heard. (Come to find out, she actually was French and not trying to be funny at all, shows how much I know.) She went on with a very lengthy lecture, mesmerizing the room with what an extraordinary faux pas it was for someone to have put mustard on the same plate with the foie gras—the horrible insult it was to have the cornichons on the plate was also unspeakable. “If you deed zis in France, I would haff to arress zhou.” I believe a more appropriate lecture could have been on the horrors of foie gras, but mustard and pickles were far more entertaining.

When the lecture was over and the woman left the room, we were all standing there with our mouths agape when the person who committed this mustard atrocity stepped forward and promptly marched over to the table, took her cocktail napkin and proceeded to smear all the mustard off the plate while muttering some of the funniest shit I’ve heard in a long time. I thought I laughed hard on Friday night, but this was so freakin’ funny my knee gave out and I dropped to the floor. Of course there were people standing around who have seen me at other parties and they assumed I was just doing my normal intoxicated slapstick routine, I tried hard to convince them I was just laughing my ass off but I don’t think they believed me. We are now referring to this party as “The Great Mustard War of ‘06.”

I’d like to think the lesson I learned tonight was that it is best to rein myself in more often and let someone else entertain the crowd. I’d love to think I can do it, but somehow I doubt it will happen, who knows.