Randomizer

- I'm ready for Christmas to be over now, and I'm ready to start getting ready for the next thing. I'm feeling the itch to start organizing, cleaning, paring down... "taking stock" for a new year. I took a few days off next week, and I'm planning on trying to find a balance between getting things accomplished and resting (physically and mentally). Then I jump back into my regular schedule on all fronts again, which looks like it will continue to alternate between less busyish and just completely insane weeks. ;) I'll take it!

- So I took Abigail ice skating yesterday (Monday) and I have to admit that I wasn't sure if this was a good idea.  She's not always into new things, especially if they're things that she doesn't master right away, and we drove up in my truck and met everyone else because I honestly wasn't sure if she'd last very long. And after the first lap around the rink, she asked for a break, and I thought, oh, this is it. She's going to be done. So we sat on the bench and I casually mentioned how skating was a lot like swimming, it took a lot of new muscles and balance skills and took a bit of time to figure out - remember when you couldn't swim? Yup, lol, that seems funny now that you swim like a fish! - skating is like that. And after a minute she got back on the ice and we went around again. We stopped for breaks, sure (as much for me as for her - my wide barefoot loving feet cramp terribly in the narrow skates!) but after a minute or two she always wanted to go out again. By the end of the session she tried it on her own for about ten feet with me spotting her, and Maggie and I made a big fuss over how proud we were. :) And I was!

- ... You know what's coming, right? I miss "my" kids. I miss "my" coaches. Every time I've been stressed out in the last two weeks (which, you know, has kinda been often), I've itched to get back to "my" pool - my happy place. I'm anxious to get everything rolling again. I feel unmoored without my kids. :(
On the other hand - and this, this is HYSTERICAL - I've run into several swim team families since we've been on break (the lessons program, not the swim team) and every time - EVERY TIME! - they greet me, then get this incredibly guilty look on their face and mumble something along the lines of, "We haven't been to practice this week/we've been taking a break/there's so much to do during the holidays/etc." And I'm just like, dude, when did I become the principal? Lol. For one, I'm not part of the swim team staff (though probably,  since half the people on deck call me by my boss's name, they're confused about that, too), and I haven't been on deck since before Christmas,  so you're safe. And second - no, that's pretty much it. :) The best part of my job is being able to love on everybody while feeling absolutely no need to guilt them. ;)

- So I need to buy some dresses. I own two dresses, and one is scarcely more than a beach dress made just barely decent with a cardi and a scarf. And I have been everywhere looking, willing to spend money on them (after all, I only need a few good dresses to pull out for church and showers and weddings, and events of that kind), but I can't find anything I like. I can't remember ever having this much trouble when I was living with my parents and only allowed to wear dresses or skirts, so I'm thinking it's me that's changed? Which makes me wonder... is it that after three years of wearing jeans, dresses just feel strange? Or is it a deeper,  subconscious resistance to going back to that time of my life, where men/fundamentalist subculture/empty religious rules spent 90% of their energy telling me how to dress, what was permissible for me to do as a woman, and extolling the virtues of patriarchal submission? I honestly don't know, and I'm not sure how to deal. I love the look of a good dress, I love the way they look on other women,  I can remember dresses that have made me feel beautiful and empowered and happy. But I put them on and they feel wrong and I want them off. I fear the well has been poisoned for me. :(

- My mom got me an essential oils starter kit for Christmas after I (hesitantly) admitted that I wanted to learn to use them (I've resisted for a long time because it seemed like everyone who was into essential oils also felt that they were a "miracle cure" for everything, rendering modern medicine unnecessary, and I just don't buy that, but I've had good luck using some herbs and extracts in the last three years of health insurancelessness, and I would love to use them similarly - not in place of modern medicine, but as more of a wellness aid. Just had to throw that disclaimer out there!). I used the orange and lavender oils immediately on my new pillows and I've been enjoying them (although, ironically, I've been sleeping horribly ever since. Probably not related - I never sleep well during a full moon - but funny). I wore a little bit of peppermint oil one day when I was particularly exhausted (more on this later) and it also seemed to help. I'm really looking forward to buying a diffuser and using some lime oil, which is supposed to help with mental clarity - I can ALWAYS use more of that!

- And last but not least, I'm tired. I've shorted myself a little too much sleep for a little too long and now I'm just beat. At this point I'm sort of surviving from one nap to the next, bolstered in between by coffee and... no, pretty much just coffee. ;) Between the long weekend and my time off I have five days off in a row, and I still can only sleep in on one of those days. I'm thinking a lot of early nights are in order!