Author: Sharon

When I was 14, I would put this song (“Fools Overture”) on, lay down in my bed and listen to it as I started to drift off to sleep. The music was a soundtrack for different “mini movies” I’d make in my head before I drifted off. I remember it used to block out all the mundane thoughts rolling around in my head and let my imagination take off, or let me have my private conversations with the universe without the clutter of life crowding in. Maybe I should take a page from my past and set my cd player up to listen to a piece of music before I drift off to sleep and see if it affords me the same “quiet time” it used to.

I’ve been trying to realign my sleep habits. I am notorious for being up late at night, a time I really enjoy, but the world doesn’t really function at that time of the day and I’m not getting as much done in my mornings as I feel I need to. So, I’m either going to have to get up even if I’ve stayed up late, or just try to go to sleep earlier in the evening.

Frank had asked me if I had any kind of New Year’s Resolutions the other day. I wouldn’t say they were New Year’s Resolution, but I can’t deny the timing isn’t there. Besides the sleep habits, I told him that I felt I needed to ~ of all things~ get more organized and structured. Ok, before all of you who KNOW me start to laugh uproariously, lemme ‘splain!

To many people, I am sickeningly organized. I have my job because of my ability to organize. I’m looked to as the ‘group event’ person because of what?… you guessed it, I’m organized.

But I don’t feel as though I’m working up to my potential personally. I’ve been busily taking care of others and their events and still not taking care of me! I don’t plan enough time in the day for all the things I want to do. If I have planned the time then I am lacking the structure or the discipline to follow through with them. I suppose that’s more the point. I am trying to put some structure back into my world.

I love the job I’m in and my current situation, but let’s face it. I’ve been pretty free-falling for more than a few years (mostly because I really did need that for a bit~thanks!) but now I’m good and this vacation from discipline and structure is interfering with productivity! The trick for me will be, and it will be difficult ’cause I tend to be an all or nothing gal, trying to find a happy midpoint between the two concepts of structure and do-nothing time.

That being said, I guess I’ll go get a smidgen more coffee and go take care of my work  and email. I need to finish making a menu for next week, so that I can go to the grocery store and have food available here for toddlers since Heather, Sebastian and Lilli will be visiting for a week and I need to pick up and baby proof a bit as well. Here’s to a productive day! Cheers!

I got my hair done today. I don’t really like it. I was happier when I was two toned and that wasn’t happy at all. Now my hair is many shades darker than I’ve ever liked it and am a bit miffed because the lady did the exact opposite of what I was looking for. I’m sure she didn’t mean to make me so upset, and she did a good job…on the hair cut and the quality of the color.. but I just don’t feel like me.

Then I went to pick up my glasses, or should I say lenses. I get that I’ll have to get used to them, since they are progressive lenses. The adjustment for seeing out of the bottom of the glasses really isn’t that difficult for me. The problems I am having is that the prescription on the top part seems so out of whack. I can barely see. And I paid to have an anti glare coating on them and I don’t think that happened.I’m going to have to call and see…it’s so frustrating to have not been able to see without two pair of glasses for so long and now (even tho I KNOW I have to try and give them some time) I still can’t see. I can’t tell you how frustrating it’s been to not be able to focus.

Trivial things in the scope of the world, but just stuff bugging me today.

http://www.atomfilms.com/2008/kung_fu_election/index.jsp

The above link allows you to fight as many of the candidates. I was playing earlier and was beaten as Hilary by Huckabee. When I went to check on the news, I found that Huckabee had quite a lead… could this game be the TRUE way the elections will be decided?? Try your luck!

This morning I woke up with a massive headache and the remnants of a dream in my head. I had been somewhere near a beach, but across a bridge and down the street from where some kind of fire or smokey event had been. I was talking to my dad on the phone, but I had been trying to call my sister. (For those who may not know, my Dad has passed and my older sister hasn’t) Dad was making sure I was ok since I had been near to this event (even tho I had no Idea it had occurred). Then the dream changed and I was still talking to Dad, but he was in the living room of our old house and I was in my bedroom. I could always hear him that way when we lived there, because my bedroom was originally the dining room that had been walled off to make a room. We were still talking about my older sister and I saw a box of  items fall over and some broken ceramic bits fall out of it. I was becoming really desparate to talk to Laura. Dad said something about Mom, but I can’t remember it. And something about my younger sister and I, but again, I don’t seem to be able to remember it.

I do remember that before I talked to Dad, I had been directed to  follow a small white gravel path between some cars to find a small park in the middle of a little town. It was a hidden little green area, with nice landscaping, but small. There was a staging area with parquet floors. There were kids taking turns doing something… you had to sign up. A little boy came and took my name (my maiden name) and seemed incredibly organized, directing people right and left and answering questions and very calm and clear about it all. The name of the park was something like Helen (or was is Rose?) Traber Park. Never heard of it myself!  Anyway, this little boy was uncanny and seemed far older than his years- I’d guess he was about 7?

I woke up with a pounding headache, but also the strains of a song floating through my head. For some reason, I needed to hear “Even in the Quietest Moments” by Supertramp. Frank reminded me that this was the very first cd we had ever purchased for our first cd player in our house. Somehow appropriate on the first day of the New Year.  Here are the lyrics.
I think someone is trying to tell me something…..

UPDATE:I found this interview/song on YouTube and what Roger Hodgson says about spirituality, music and this song fits exactly with what I was thinking/feeling after I had this dream…

 Even in the quietest moments
I wish I knew
What I had to do
And even though the sun is shining
Well I feel the rain
Here it comes again, dear

And even when you showed me
My heart was out of tune
For there’s a shadow of doubt
That’s not letting me find you too soon

The music that you gave me
The language of my soul
Oh Lord, I want to be with you
Won’t you let me come in from the cold?

Don’t you let the sun fade away
Don’t you let the sun fade away
Don’t you let the sun be leaving
Won’t you come to me soon

And even though the stars are listening
And the ocean’s deep
I just go to sleep
And then I create the silent movie
You become the star
Is that what you are, dear?

Your whisper tells a secret
Your laughter brings me joy
And a wonder of feeling
I’m Nature’s own little boy
But still the tears keep falling
They’re raining from the sky
Well there’s a lot of me got to go under
Before I get high

Don’t you let the sun disappear
Don’t you let the sun disappear
Don’t you let the sun be leaving
No, you can’t be leaving my life
Say that you won’t be leaving my life
Say that you won’t be leaving my life
Say won’t you please, stay won’t you please
Say won’t you please, stay won’t you please
Lord, won’t you come and get into my life
Lord, won’t you come and get into my life
Say won’t you please, stay won’t you please
Say won’t you please, stay won’t you please
Oh Lord, don’t go

And even when the song is over
Where have I been
Was it just a dream?
And though your door is always open
Where do I begin
May I please come in, dear?

First let me share with you the beauty that is currently brightening my office. I got this hibiscus as a gift from a family after the spring concert. She graced my back porch all summer long and when it got colder, I brought her into my office since it has one of the sunniest windows. She’s been blooming all fall and winter. The bloom really only lasts 24 hours, but they are gorgeous. I took this picture with my new camera. There are so many settings, that I have to relearn how to take pictures with an SLR.

Frank took this shot of Piper the other day. The detail was great, right down to the little water droplets on her nose that stay there after she’s gotten a drink!

For some reason, my computer doesn’t want to recognize my memory card, so I had to find the cables to transfer my images and of course, although they are both Kodak cameras, none of the accessories match.

Speaking of memory, I had a bit of a tiff with my kids this morning. We had gone shopping the morning after Christmas, and one of our stops was at the Party Store. I casually asked if I should buy party supplies for New Year’s Eve. I got no response. So this morning, I mentioned that I still didn’t know what the headcount for New Year’s Eve was. Libby snapped at me that she had “already told me” that she was planning on going to a friends house. (Um, no…. never discussed) I asked her if she had received permission and she said she had not, to which I suggested that perhaps this meant that the discussion truly wasn’t had with me. She was very annoyed and kept telling me how she had talked to me at the Party Store. (Nope, she and Sean were playing with the NYE stuff while I looked at Christmas cards for next year.) She also tried to tell me that I had forgotten her company party this weekend (which I hadn’t, although I do admit that she originally told me her party was on the 29th and then when she reminded me last night she said “Saturday” and I simply didn’t put the date and the day together, but I did know she was going and needed a ride home).
 Needless to say, she left in a huff of what she believes is my incapacity to recall anything she ever says, and I was left grumbling about conversations with others being attributed as conversations with me.

Enter Sean.

Sean asked me what my problem was. (He’s not subtle.) I explained that I was frustrated that his sister frequently accuses me of forgetting conversations we have never had, and proceeded to tell him about the NYE discussion. He said he didn’t know what he was doing and that he had talked to about 10 people but hadn’t made up his mind- while rolling a lint brush on his new black pants. I mentioned that I had not heard from him as to whether he was going to stay home and his response was that he had fun here, but it was boring. (Ok. How am I to take that??) Then he goes on to tell me how when you are “young” you don’t want to go to the same place all the time and that the same four walls are boring. (I get what he’s trying to say, but he’s really digging a hole the way he is saying it.) Then he doesn’t understand WHY I could be offended and a bt hurt by that comment. Sorry hanging out with your family is so boring!!

I guess the main frustration I’m having, is that:

1. I TRY to find out in advance what everyone is planning and I can’t get a straight, non-confrontational answer and

2. I’ve heard from my children how they wish our family was as close as some of their friends’ families, and then they don’t understand that close families spend time with one another and build bonds that make them close.

I’m not misled or deluded to think that my children should spend every minute of every holiday with me, or that they will always be around for New Year’s Eve. I think the frustration is that the consideration of their own agenda is always of higher priority than simple communication with us about what they would like to do. They are so busy making plans with everyone else, they just seem to assume I “KNOW” and thus are taken aback when I question them, so that I actually *WILL* know.

The live one we had to have!

Some of our holiday fun!