Thursday, February 12, 2009

Stop the Ride!

I have been on one hell of an emotional roller coaster ride these past couple of weeks. I seriously wish the ride would end so I could get off. Maybe I could hop on something more tame, a nice carousel or maybe a really tame pony ride? I like ponies. Probably not going to happen. I don't think this ride is quite over yet. But I am scouting around for some good, well-behaved ponies.


Since I'm not the kind of person that plasters their personal business all over cyberspace, y'all will just have to hang there in suspense. Besides, I've spent enough of my time recently focusing on all the crappy stuff in my life. It's easy to get that icky negative snowball rolling downhill when you give it a good push. Then it just grows and grows into a monster that just crushes every good thing in it's path. I'm not one to wallow around in misery and self-pity (I do visit there regularly, but try not to hang around for long), so I'm using this blog to help me remember all of the good things I have going on in my life right now. Here's a short list of things for which I am truly grateful.

1-The huge box of art supplies that came via UPS from my very senile grandmother in New York. When I say huge, I mean super HUGE. Hannah could easily fit into this box, if she scrunched up a bit. Huge reams of construction paper, hundreds of different markers and crayons, paints, glitter, stickers, assorted craft sets, those cheesy velvety marker coloring sets - it's enough to keep the kids busy for weeks, maybe months. It was Christmas day in the Webb house this afternoon as we dug through the packing peanuts pulling out cool stuff and more cool stuff. I sense a huge envelope full of child-created art going out to my dear grandmother soon.

2 - My goofy dog. He may be obnoxiously hyper sometimes, but it feels so good to get down on the floor with him and just wrestle, and play tug the sock, and make funny noises in his ear, and just be plain goofy right along with him. That dog did some major repair work on my attitude today. Dog therapy could probably cure some of the nastier types of depression.

3 - My almost-13-year-old who paid me one of the highest compliments today. "Mom's not nerdy at all," he told his younger sister. Ah, Daniel....if you had only known me in high school you would not be saying that. But it's cool that my almost teenager thinks his mom is at least "not nerdy". And the fact that we sat on the couch this evening watching Breaking Benjamin videos while he layed his head on my shoulder is pretty awesome, too.

4 - Fried chicken (with all of it's greasy goodness) and wild cherry Pepsi. I know it's not exactly good nutrition, but it tastes soooooo good!

5 - The daffodils in my yard bloomed with the full moon. Daffodils are my favorite flowers. Enough said.

6 - My co-workers and regular customers at the cafe. I swear I just can't leave that place without smiling. I LOVE my job!

7 - My kitties. I never thought I'd be a cat person, but they grow on me. How do they know when someone just needs a warm soft kitty purring in their lap? And they don't care if you cry all over them or have snot all over yourself. Yeah, cats are great.

8 - Random hugs from my children. It seems like they are just full of them recently. I can't count the number of times I've been full body bear hugged by my kids this week. Just out of the blue, for no good reason other than they wanted to hug me. (Or maybe it was because they wanted me to buy them ice cream.)

See? Life is pretty awesome. It's not perfect, but would it really be much fun if it was? Sometimes we need shocking, mind-blowing drama to stir things up, to make us appreciate what is solid and stable and good. And sometimes mind-blowing drama is necessary for us to discover and appreciate who we really are and what we have that is precious. I mean, roller coaster rides can be stressful and scary and adrenaline-pumping (I've almost peed myself on some of the tamer ones), but most people are smiling and happy when the ride is finally over. But I'm still thinking ponies are more my speed

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