life is so unexpected and crappy at times. i just lost a dear friend of mine. over the last week, we have lost a family member, and two close friends. i have lost friends before and (maybe because i was much younger) i was not as affected by it as i am now. of course i was devastatingly saddened as i am now, however, i wasn't thrust into a state of realization of my own mortality. it is frightening to think of not being here. not for myself, but for my family. particularly thinking of my friend i lost today. she was a young mom. two beautiful little girls only 2 and 1... she was a beautiful spirited person, inside and out. her girls are going to be deprived of the love of their mother. if there was ever a time to claim the unfairness of life, this would be it. i am unable to understand these losses of the past week. all so unexpected and crushing.

daily goings ons...

the last couple of days i have spent in the kitchen. i desperately need a new dishwasher! after cleaning the entire kitchen, i had to cook dinner, which now means i have to clean the kitchen again... today i got up and the kitchen was still clean, but all the dishes from yesterday needed to be put away, and the fridge needed to be cleaned out. this in turn created more dishes needing to be washed. after washing all those dishes, it was time to make dinner again, so i still have a dishwasher (used as a drying rack) full of dishes that need to be put away and now dirty dishes from making dinner tonight... wow, no wonder i am tired of being at home. so where in all that am i supposed to clean the rest of the house? i think i need a house elf :) (i'd even settle for a gnome at this point). i have been in a bit of a slump the last few days also, maybe too much down time??? i had been very busy up until sunday morning and i woke up with nothing on my calendar for the entire week... this causes me to feel like i have all the time in the world to finish stuff and therefore never finish anything even though i have way more time to finish than i normally would... (get it?) that was a lot of rambling to say that if i have deadlines, i work more efficiently. i am happy to say that i now have at least two things on my calendar for the week and am anticipating a couple more to develop over the next day or so. a great example of having plenty of time to waste: i have needed to do laundry since sunday, but since i was free i just kept telling myself i had plenty of time to do it, and now it's the middle of tuesday night and i still haven't started a single load... (haven't even sorted any of it yet) i suppose in light of all the procrastinating i am doing, and considering its getting very late now, i should head to bed and get a fresh start tomorrow with some deadlines in place. i think it's partly the accountability. if i have no deadlines, i have no accountability if something is not done. however, as a general rule, if there is a deadline, there is generally some sort of accountability attached to the deadline (otherwise, why would there be a deadline?) which means i will work more efficiently to meet the deadline and be accountable for my actions. i believe this started when i was in fourth grade. i had a teacher who did not push me to excel and i decided that if i already knew how to do the work, that i didn't have to do the homework... boy was i wrong! got a D in math that year, just for not turning in homework, but my thinking was, homework is for practice, i knew how to do it and therefore didn't need to practice. sounded good at the time, i suppose. i quickly learned a lesson in being accountable for my actions even if someone is not looking over your shoulder telling you to do something. i still have a problem with excessive amounts of homework. (and by excessive, i mean homework pertaining to stuff i already know how to do.)

i can never think of a title.

i generally sit down to update my blog having no idea what i am going to update it with. it just seems to me that the day to day happenings are so trivial and that there should be more substance... on the other hand, it makes a nice record to keep track of some of the little things that occur and would otherwise be forgotten. i am extremely out of practice with my writing and need to brush up a bit in the vocabulary department. it seems that every year i live in this armpit of hell, the intelligent words that have seeped into my brain are being sucked out. i rarely find opportunities to use decent sized words in daily conversation outside of home and close friends. (and even at home, there's a lot of 2 1/2 year old conversations, which can be intelligent, just not full of great vocabulary.) i have been volunteering with the imperial county breastfeeding coalition and attending regular meeting. this has provided some great brain stimulation over the past few months. although this has come at a price of doing a lot of planning for the worlds largest baby shower. the event was last week and it was a success! i also presented a piece on "babywearing" and was nervous as hell!!! it's been many, many, many, many moons since i last spoke in front of so many people. (hundreds!) also, this fall, i am anticipating joining the early care and education council as a member and hope to keep on my toes with regards to my loss of intellectual stimulation over the years. i guess i just need to go back to school, but that would require a lot of money, which no one has these days. it would also require a lot of time which i am lacking as well. i don't see where i will fit in between raising twins, keeping up with the house, trying to become a la leche league leader, and preparing to take a lactation educator course... did i mention all this is while trying to get a non-profit child care and family resource center up and running?? whew, i guess i'm a bit ambitious.

people...

you know how you can come across someone in your life that seems fairly normal and then you realize their far from it. i actually prefer not to use the word normal, because it is so relative and changes with people perceptions of what may or may not be normal to them. so lets use the word intelligent. you meet someone who at first seems intelligent enough, and then every single time you see this person they manage to amaze you again... and not "pulitzer prize winning" amaze you, more like "rides the short bus" amaze you. you are then forced to wonder how they have managed to deceive so many people to get where they are in their current positions. unfortunately, i have come across more than i care to discuss over my lifetime (which isn't a terribly long one yet), however there is one in particular today that began to stick in my mind like a splinter all day. how is it that people are so deceived by the appearance or facade that one can envelope themselves in? they pass themselves off as regular folks but they are clueless in more ways than one.