Spring Cleaning

Well, it's been a wild ride this past week or so. Time to pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. (Someone out there knows who sang that song...I don't!)

Between being worried sick about things I can't fix (Dad), stressing over the "will they hire me full time at the college or not?"/cutting back on one area of practice in favor of another /career choices, and getting to work at losing another 10 lbs, I got confirmation yesterday...my mother has announced she's "coming to see her grandchildren" this coming weekend. Oy. Vey.

As some of you know, on top of the Dad disaster, I'm in the midst of a dysfunctional family version of Celebrity Deathmatch with my mother, with whom I normally get along pretty well. No long story or gory details, but since my younger-older brother dumped his wife of 17 years and married a now-former call girl while he was working in the Philippines, I've fallen into disfavor with my mother and sibs for not being real "open" to, or otherwise fawning over, the new bride/marriage. In fact, it disgusts me. So after going back to Chicago in January, I've learned that I am "too conservative," among other things (Nah, just a relatively serious Catholic) and the battle began. I am Godmother to my niece and nephew, whose lives were just thrown into utter chaos by their self-proclaimed atheist and morally vacant (IMHO) father, and I can't stand to see my beautiful former sister in law so utterly broken and bereft. She's my age, and married my then-Army officer brother at 21. Her whole existence was her family life, and she's still shellshocked 2 years later. Oh, here I go making it a long story, and I said I wouldn't.

So anyway, time to get out of my head - which I clearly need to do, eh? - and into some long-put-off projects, like finishing off the painting the giraffe pattern on the wall in the baby's room, preparing for the Memorial Day yard sale to end all yard sales, putting all the winter stuff into storage, doing more planting, walking along the river with the tribe and pack, and getting ready for another all-too-short NY summer. In that spirit, I'm just tinkering about a bit with the color scheme here (beige was boring, blue is more "brook-y" and Marian, anyway), pondering what color to paint my kitchen, and thanking our dear Lord that despite my wackadoodle family and its history, I am "one of the smartest and happiest people alive." <-- This comment is lifted off of my latest course evals -- it surprised and flattered me, especially in light of the past few weeks!