As I scramble to get the last load of wash done, dust yet again, vacuum once more, along with a zillion other little things, I am finally bouncing back from the surreal blahs. I am taking just a quick break before its back to more preparations. The house is full of wonderful aromas, thanks to my husband, who is cooking his little heart out, making meatballs by the dozens.

Tomorrow is his birthday. So, I will be toasting my little heart out at the stoke of midnight, celebrating the day long, long, long ago when came into this world and began his life.  A life that would eventually merge into mine. A life I can’t imagine without this man. And, its such a wonderful life because of him.

But, enough of the mushy crap. There just so happens to be one more reason I will be celebrating.  I have finally, yes I mean FINALLY paid off my student loans!  I cannot tell you what an amazing feeling this is! After ten long, long, long years of handing over huge chunks of my paychecks, the end is here! Today! In a way, I honestly don’t know what the hell I am going to do with myself without that debt hanging over my head. I have obsessed about my student loans for the better part of my working adulthood, always figuring ways to put a little more down, finagle an extra payment, get them the hell out of my life! Now they are gone, and its like I have nothing to fret over intensely. A part of me has suddenly died. I am half tempted to go out and buy a new car tomorrow so I can have more debt to keep me whole.  I need that number crunching worry wart, she’s like the alter ego to my shopaholic.  Oh, wait, I almost forgot. I don’t need a new loan, I have a mortgage to keep my calculator busy for the next thirty blood sucking years! How could I forget that? Especially after cleaning every inch of this house all week? But the hard work has paid off, because it does look great. If only it was going to last more than a few hours…

Let the mess celebrations begin! Here’s to friends, family and fine wine! What better way is there to beat the blahs?

I think I inhaled too many chemicals over this weekend’s cleaning endeavor, mixed in with mega doses of cold medicine to boot.  Now that the cold is more or less gone, I am surprised I still feel somewhat out of it.  Do you ever get stretches of days like that? Not quite the blues or blahs, kinda more surreal than anything emotional.

After an hour or so catching up and commenting on the many blogs I have been forsaking (and apparently missing many great posts), I will leave you with an image worth a thousand words. Since that is what it would take to fully describe my mood and state of mind right now.

An Egg on A Plate Without The Plate

This is one of my favorite Dali works of art. It occurred to me once while viewing this painting live in a museum, that I too could produce a similar piece of art, even though I lack any talent whatsoever. I would call it “A Common Stick Figure Standing Next to An Amazing Portrait Without The Amazing Portrait”.

I am not a patient person.  In fact, my lack of patience is so bad, the universe has bestowed upon me my very own Zen Master dedicated to teaching me the art of patience.  His soul resides in my computer.  I had another lesson today. 

I had written a post, however, when I went to save it, my editor froze. So I madly clicked everywhere I could on the screen to try to get it to work.  Let me try this. Or this. Maybe this will work. How bout this. THIS. THIS! Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I desperately tried to cut and paste the post into wordpad in hopes of saving it, did I realized the Zen Master was granting me another lesson. That was when my entire computer froze.  I was forced to reboot, losing everything. 

As my computer took the usual forty-two minutes and thirty-nine seconds to go through its many Windows loading bullshit screens, I could just imagine the Zen Master summering today’s lesson:

“Clickity-clicky-click-click is not the way.  Patience is the way.”

Perhaps, after several hours of inhaling white and exhaling black, I just may acquire the patience it will take to rewrite the damn thing.  For now, this lovely rant will have to do.  I can safely say that I have failed yet another test. But, fear not! There will be plenty more chances in future, of this I am certain.  He will never give up on me.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and a relaxing extended weekend. Our holiday was rather quiet this year. We did not cook, as originally planned. A week ago, we were all set to host a big meal for roughly eight or nine family and friends. But, you know how those things go. Little by little, the numbers dwindled down to just the three of us. So, impromptu, we drove to my mom’s and picked her up from work and all went out to dinner. It was nice, actually. Not exactly your traditional holiday get together, for sure. But, I am glad my mother did not spend it alone, and of course, Piper was thrilled to see “ganmom”. 

As for the lovely relaxing extended weekend? Yeah right. First, I ended up coming down with a cold. Fun, fun. But, what could even more fun than having a cold? How ‘bout cleaning an entire house from top to bottom while your head feels like a bowling ball? Oh yay, wicked fun! But, it had to get done, and now that it is over, I am glad I muddled through it instead of bailing out. I am sure I made my neighbors happy by finally taking my Halloween decorations down, at least. Not to mention that my house is now presentable for our party next weekend.

It is our annual wine tasting party. This year, we decided to do it before the holidays, on my husband’s birthday. It always ends up being a good time. Except for the minor mishap that happened two years ago. I managed to cut my hand while cleaning a wine glass and had to go to the emergency room (at least I knew it was due to my typical clumsiness, since I was pregnant and didn’t drink so much as take a sip!) My friend drove me to the hospital since my husband was tanked and we had a house full of people to take care of as well.  It wasn’t that bad of a cut, but required stitches, none-the-less. But, with my pregnancy hormones in full gear, you would have thought I was losing a limb.  When I was being assessed in the ER, I over heard the nurse say to the doctor, “do you think we need to send her up to L&D?”  I immediately panicked and grabbed my friend’s arm in a death grip.

“Oh my God, Lisa! They are sending me up to Life or Death!”

She quickly reassured me that L&D stood for labor and delivery, and I was going to be fine, it was just a minor cut after all. Needless to say, I will probably never live that one down as long as I live, most definitely as long as we have annual wine parties. Pregnant drama queen at her best. I am forbidden to wash wine glasses to this day.

Anyway, the rest of this week we will be busy preparing for the party. Still lots to be done. Considering this, I would say overall, not hosting a big turkey dinner was probably for the best, and it has only made us that more excited about next weekend. It’s been a while since our house was full of friends, family and laughter. Since we really enjoy entertaining, it is truly a labor of love. And, as my husband so wisely stated, “We have to throw a party every now and then. It is the only thing that makes us clean.”

And clean, clean, clean we did. All weekend long. Not much of a holiday break, granted. But, for us, the big get together event is yet to come.