Greeting

I should begin with an introduction. I really like reading other people's '100 Things' and random internet Q&A tags, but...I have tried to do that 100 Things, and I don't have the patience for finishing it. Too many distractions and interruptions in this house.

I have chosen to start writing in a blog because I have too much swirling around in my head. Not crazy-like. Just lots of thoughts (how to raise happy children without them being the death of my mental stability); ideas (MUST finish our family room and kitchen...it still looks like a warehouse two years after we moved here); rants (oh yes, I love to rant, with my mother especially, but honestly I am careful with whom I rant....I sort-of-kind-of try to give folks the benefit of the doubt and I don't really care to offend others. Unless they start it. Then we have a fair game.)

Having grown up in the Southeast, my style tends to be a more conservative. I like children to look (and behave!) like children, rather than Little Adults. Hi there, Clueless Hollywood Starlets! I like my hair not to become tooooo (I am a realist) far a cry from its intended color. I have also moved around this blessed country many times (13), to many places (east, west, north, south, middle), worked with, have been neighbors with, and met all kinds of people, and I can honestly say there is not one place I have not (sometimes evennnnnntually) embraced and enjoyed. I like many types of people with all manner of sensibilities. I like to learn about them, and I appreciate who they are. On the other hand, I don't have a lot of patience for terribly insecure folks with lots of issues. Especially when said issues impact others negatively.

My hands-down favorite place I have lived is a perfect, breathtaking small town in Northern California. An actual Garden of Eden, swathed in lavender, eucalyptus, California bay, and many many grapevines. I'd go back there in a second to live and raise this family.

My little family includes Working-for-the-Man Daddy. Work at his corporate-America gig is a dirty whore, and I hate her for the time she demands (and no one's fooling me if they think going out to big fancy work dinnners is SUCH A CHORE compared with feeding, bathing and putting down 3 babes), but the money is a means to an end: to live the way we care to live, to help those we care to help, in ways we prefer. We also are blessed with the three babies. Kindergarten Boy, 5; Preschool Boy 3; and squishy, smily, occasionally screamy Baby Girl 9 mos. My parents still live back in the Southeast, and my husband's family still lives in the Midwest. And I worked the Corporate Gig (soul-numbing, yet the back-patting and getting-to-be-smart-and-competent is addictive) for over a decade post-college, and now I stay home/ drive the family Volvo wagon full time in our latest locale -- the arid Southwest.

My husby often looks at me and declares: 'Crazy.' But you know what? He loves it. I love it, and I'd be lost without it: the noise, the kids, their weird jokes, our family meals, the passion and all the moments of overwhelming joy. Feel free to join me, introduce yourself, too, and play nice with my family, friends and me.....otherwise, See Paragraph Two.