Dear Darlings
After 4 months of limboticy, (see below) we are moving on up. And moving in. New digs await. We will deck the halls and bounce on the balls of our toes!
Thank you for your presence, I feel you. Steady on my friends, from here only up.
(Limboticy; my new word, made up for this one time use. As to living in limbo, with a side of near lunacy…)
Maybe it is the November Greys.
They are kind of like the November Blues, but less colourful. Drab. I feed right off that. Nothing is appealing. Where is the colour?
And the eyes looking through grey coloured glasses will see things in monotone.
Here is the thing. November is never a good month for me. It is the anniversary month. The month of grieving. And maybe this November has also been the month of good news, it certainly hasn’t been the month of good happenings. Those will come with December.
So I take myself out for a walk, trying to avoid stress for a while. Trying to shake off this coldness that is settling in where light should shine. Looking for something lovely. Hoping to spot a bright splash of life somewhere. But it just isn’t that kind of month.
And it is when I stop looking for things that would be out of place, that I spot things that belong in this cold colourless setting. There is much to be appreciated out there.
I don’t know if I mean anything profound by this. I just wanted to showcase what I saw when I accepted that this is what today is.
Around the corner comes December, and with it all the colour and hope and love and warmth we can muster.
It might be that The Universe picked up on my stress levels. Said ok woman, you aren’t playing along with the Intent to Think Only Positive Things, in order to attract only positive things. I see you sneaking in that little nudge of nail biting concern. So I am going to throw you a curve ball. A big one. But one I know you can navigate. To remind you that you got this, for better or worse. (With a side of brief tantrum.)
And I respond in kind. Thanks Life! Did I really need that? No. But I got a back up plan! So there! Ha! Feel that? That’s me getting by, pushing through, keepin on keepin on!
Maybe The Universe and I are on to something. Maybe I expect bad things to just keep happening and so they do. But they aren’t so bad, are they?
Good will overcome yet! I SHALL PREVAIL! (Not skipping or dancing again yet, but stomping my foot in mad defiance. Define mad? O a bit of both thank you very much.)
Dear Lost and Dirty, Wayward Sock
I don’t usually use the elevator, you see. But with all the laundry to be done, I went ahead and did. I am sorry I didn’t register the white and green gleam on the floor until the second before the door closed.
I know I failed you. For you are gone. But I tried. Believe me. I rode the ‘wrong’ elevator all day long, up and down from 1st to 2nd floor. Every chance I got, I pushed that button. And everytime, elevator 1 opened, while elevator 2, the one you used for your great escape, remained closed off to me. I haven’t used the elevators so much in months! All for one sneaky errant sock! At last, as I was returning the shopping cart no longer needed, back to ground floor, the Right Elevator Door opened. I stepped inside, and nothing. I felt like it was You had stood Me up!
I imagine you have found a home in one of the neighbour’s son’s sock drawers and I hope you are happy there! I won’t forget you, little generic white and green sock.
November used to be the month of sorrow. And now it is the bringer of good news!
I got approved for an apartment right behind Elfboys school, and I am ready to dance under a rainbow. But instead, I think I will embrace the calm that relief brings.
Celebration will come in the form of a house warming. Of filling a new home with joy and life. Our own little space to be ourselves in. (With a balcony at that!) I can’t wait to get our first Christmas tree in our new home!!! We might not have furniture, but we will have so many Lights!
The rush is over. The time for stillness and peace is at hand. Right in time for Christmas. A Home Sweet Home.
I am not sure what I think about theories of manifestation. I do believe in ‘putting it out there’ if I want something to happen. Be that to the universe, or just to the people I think can help. And I think we only receive what we are open to.
I even pray, in a sense. I tap into the stillest part of myself and focus on what it is I want most. Try to listen for an answer within myself. Send a few thoughts out to ‘the universe’ for luck. Wonder if in some sense, literal or metaphorical, if our Mum can feel me.
I applied for an apartment today. And there are some pretty big fears that want to rear their spooky heads. Things that could get in the way of us getting this place. Big Bad Unpaid Student Loans and Credit Checks for example. But I want this place so badly! We need it. Part of me thinks that if I listen to my fears, they will draw to me the very things that I do not want to happen, because, as sister says, my focus will attract to me that which I am thinking and feeling.
Maybe all that positive thinking will do is keep me in a healthy head space. And that is not a bad thing, now is it?! But if it helps me to attract good things, well, that would be Just Great Too!
So… HAPPY THOUGHTS HAPPY THOUGHTS HAPPY THOUGHTS will in the least put me in a good mood and at the best will have us looking at our new home!
The bitchy cat has decided we shall be friends.
When I moved in here, I fell instantly in love with The Dog. Even the kids called him My Boyfriend for a while. It isn’t weird, we just snuggle sometimes, a lick of a toe, a pat on the head. It is an easy relationship 😀 He is an easy going guy and I Love’s his silly happy stares.
But the cat. Oh the cat. I declared secretly to my son within days of living here, that I Don’t Like The Cat. This is serious business. It is a rare declaration for me to not like someone. Oh and she is very much a someone. One of those spazzy things that feels electrical currents around her. One daren’t touch her if she is awake, and not if she is asleep either. I don’t think it is her fault. She came as a kitten into a house full of babies. I don’t imagine she had a lot of gentle in her life. She was messed with and rough housed with. I think they should have gotten a puppy earlier.
Maybe it was her personality from the beginning. She is a brownish calico. With a look in her eyes that says she is trying to zap you from a distance.
I am a self professed Dog Person. This doesn’t mean I am a self professed automatic Cat Hater. It is just that I am not one to walk into a room with a cat and instantly bond with them. I couldn’t care less. I Know how cats work. Their world is their world. They don’t necessarily need me. And that is cool. But I am here if they want to cozy up. Maybe I am more like them than dogs. I like my personal space. I like to get to know someone before I let them curl up against the back of my knees. And as much as I adore the eagerness of dogs, I respect the distance that cats seem to prefer.
So. The bitchy cat has decided we shall be friends. This has been a progression. We have shared the same living room for nearly 4 months now. And it is only in the last couple of weeks that she has started on this mission to befriend me. Or enslave me. Probably the latter. Could be the weather. Winter is upon us. And my bed in the corner offers a good deal of warmth. Could be that we are unlikely allies in this busy house full of bustling bodies. Whatever it is, I have decided I am open to her intents. She might offer some warmth for my toes in the night after all.
Last night was a big step for us. Up until now her attentions have been subtle. She sits in my vacinity, ignoring me. Lets me touch her head. Purred when I sat on the other end of the couch. But last night she decided to grace the end of my bed with her bountiful presence. She let me half cuddle her. One arm, around her back. She wasn’t there in the morning. But this is progress.
I have an announcement to make. I kind of love this bitchy cat! 
In a family of eccentrics, who stands out?
That is the question!
Imagine if you will, a dinner table with all the members of my family seated around it. Someone yells GO and we all get up, dash around madly, and then sit in the seat diagonally across from us. Then we get to eating what ever is on the plate in front of us. But we use only spoons, with our wrong hands. And most of us are talking over each other, giggling or staring at random.
That scene has not really ever happened. But that is what my family is like. Sounds like fun. Wait, lets add a few other rules to the game. This sounds too nice. Once you are seated, you reach for what looks like a bread basket. But instead you come back with a piece of paper. On it is written the worst insult imaginable. Now the fun begins. You look to your left. And holler that insult right at the ear of the person sitting there about to take a bite of their mustard covered mash potatoes. And when they look at you in dismay, hurl whatever you have in your mouth at their plate. There. That sounds about right.
Nasty piece of business is a family at a dinner table. Mine anyway. Look. Here is the thing. We are not All mental. But when you sit us at a table, it is like someone said Ready Set Go… Now Get as Mean as You Can, and Enjoy It!
If someone were to take us one at a time into a room to determine how much of the Eccentricity Gene each of us carried, I think we would rock that scale out of the room! I think in each branch of my family, as opposed to a handful or Normies, and a Strange One, we got it the other way around. We are the Crazy Book Ends to the Normal. It is true! Take my closest siblings. My sister and brother, and I, sharing the same 2 parents. The girls, eldest and youngest of we 3, are like the crazy unleashed hippie sisters, with our solid ginger brother between us.And I wouldn’t be the one to call Him normal. And I think this analogy can be carried through the other branches of this mad family.
Why is this? In the question posted in today’s prompt, as far as who the eccentric person is and how they earned that title, in my family, it sort of goes the other way round. How does one get to be the solid. The quiet normal one that stands out by being as sane as possible? I’m not sure of the answer actually.
Look. Before who ever actually reads this gets all up in arms accusing me of disrespecting my family members. Know this. I love these people more than anything in the world. I have moved life and home to be closer to them. Nowhere else do I feel like I belong. These people will give all they have to give, if needed. And the ones who are too rough to handle are banished for the sake of everyone elses safety and sanity. I love this crazy bunch. Where else would I, perhaps the nearly maddest of all, be able to Not stand out as completely odd?!
Well, Elfkin navigated his first day of school on crutches like a Champ! And it was the first day of true winter here, with wet snow making the sidewalks a mess for anyone not sure footed. But he carries himself on those sticks better than I imagined he would. Sure, I step gingerly along side him, my heart ready to lurch out of my chest every time he wobbles a bit, but he is fighting through. And I am ready to catch him but giving him the space to plunge forward as he will. This is a lesson for us both. A rite of passage.
I swear seeing them put a cast on his leg is like one of my worst fears as a parent coming true. But I am so relieved that he is not in pain. And believe me I am confident he is not. Mostly because I ask him a few more times a day than is necessary. How is the pain scale right now? He says “OK MuM, if Zero is No Pain, and 2000 is All the Pain in the world, I am here, and then he points to his kneecap.” That is Elfspeak for I’m good Mum, no pain.
Even though he is missing out on a decent romp in the first proper snow fall of the year, his spirits are high. He is like a star at school right now. His eyes shine in the telling. The kids all scrambling to help him get his lunch box, how he got to read to kindergarteners at lunch time. It is helping my heart that is for sure.
And I think I earned my Mother of the Week points when I handed him a half formed snowball to finish up and toss at me. If pelting me with snowballs helps him feel like he has had a frolic, who am I to say “No I won’t hand you that snow!” Maybe it is Motherguilt fueling me, but I’m all for it! I will pay that penance just to keep his heart a glow!
Now to go reset the alarm, as it takes us a good half hour to get to school in the morning now. But let me tell you this, not to worry! Not to worry. That boy has boundless energy and heart, and he reminds me that I can do better.
Time to get out there and give them Heck all over town! (Hellfire comes later, when we are running again.)
I wanted to say real quick…
that if I come across as pouty or down trodden sometimes,
this is my venting space,
and I have decided I would rather come across as cloudy to you lot
than be that way in front of my child.
But the rise follows the fall and I think things are picking up now.
tracesofnut 
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