Gray

I'm in a funk today.

Yesterday I went out to lunch with the entire group of people I most often eat lunch with. It's about 10 people and we usually have 6 or so on any given day. It was kind of a last hurrah; on Monday morning there will be layoffs and we just KNOW that at least a few if not several of our group won't be around on Fridays anymore to go to our Italian restaurant and eat pizza and joke about the waitress with the eyeshadow or the one who is so damn slow.

It's hard to know whether it's worse -- to have to go out and look for a new job, or stay behind in the old job and watch your friends leave one by one, knowing things will never be the same anymore, because we won't be hanging out all the time together, and oh by the way, you get to do a good chunk of extra work from now on, so get busy. "Stay positive and focused on your work as much as possible. " OK.

Today is the 30th Freihoffer run; I am HERE, TYPING, and not THERE, getting ready to run. I am disappointed in myself, and discouraged, but that's not really fair. I've been insanely busy, the PTA stuff was really a nightmare this year, and with everything going on it was completely unrealistic to think that I could train, and do this race. I have had minor physical issues too, nothing worth writing about but just enough to make me go "Yeah... not running." It's a cloudy day and that kills me more, because it's not horrible and hot and muggy like it was last year; this is actually the kind of weather I liked to run in - back when I used to actually be able to get myself out to run. I think if I had trained, I might have been able to actually RUN most of the race, with weather like this. To pull myself out of this horrible space I'm going to try to go and buy a decent new pair of shoes next week, at a place over on the main shopping drag where they claim to spend time helping you get a good fit. I'm going to try to work toward the Komen run (it's in the fall). Look forward. I hate the word "try" though, because it's all about maybes and probably nots.

The construction is progressing, a bit slowly still because of weather, but next week should take off quickly. My mother's only comment to my sister about it all is that she plans to give me "my" dollhouse, now that I'll have so much space. She made it for me while I was young, and it's been at her house for a long time now. It's beautiful. She handmade furniture for it. And still. I don't want it. It's GIANT. Seriously, three feet tall and three feet wide and so NOT why I am expanding my family room, and it's HER hobby, her creation, not mine.

This project, the family room expansion specifically, is not about finding a place for my dollhouse. It's about having kids who are not kids, they're working into the teenage phase, and I want them to be able to sit comfortably and have friends over, and have space for my art stuff and their music stands so that they will practice more. I want abundant noise in MY house, not the rigid silence that was required in a tiny house where the sole breadwinner worked from 11PM to 7 AM.

She has never respected my scrapbooking. She thinks it's a waste of money. I like to have the photos of my kids, and the things we do, that I didn't do or don't have photos of from MY childhood. I like to preserve them, and I find the hobby itself to be relaxing and fun, with all of the pretty papers and stickers and tools like punches and eyelets.

So. I expect an argument down the line, on that one. Followed by sullen silence and "she knows I'm mad" to people who shouldn't have to be in the middle of it.

I'll be going to pick out carpeting today; another semi overwhelming decision that I will cross my fingers and move forward with. Wish me luck.