Well, I finished The Stone Diaries today. It was a pretty good book. It won the Pulitzer Prize, but I wasn’t in love with it. It was an interesting read, but it didn’t leave me thinking, “Wow! What a great book!”. Ya know what I mean? Anyway, I think next on my list is, “The Red Pony” by John Steinbeck.

It doesn’t take much. Just the mention of a sickness or a disease, and your heart starts beating faster. It was just the suggestion that symptoms could be more than what we thought, and I’m scared of the possibility. A disease coming into my family? How could that happen? I don’t want to worry needlessly, but how can I not? Just the mention of it, and I am so scared. Please, God, let everything be okay, and let me have worried needlessly.

As is customary, I am up late, even though I’m really tired, on Chris’ first night back at work. It’s so hard for me to go to bed when he’s not here. At least for the first night back, it is. You would think I would be used to it by now. I wonder how many nights we’ve spent apart since we’ve been married? He was working nights for nearly the entire first year of our marriage, and then he was on days for a while, when he got his new job. He’s been on swing shift since then, and he’s gone almost as much as he’s here. You would think I would be used to it, but it’s still terribly lonely.
Loneliness sucks, you know? It just really, really does. I wasn’t meant to spend my days not talking to people. I’m a social creature, by nature, and, now, my socializing is mainly spent with two little people who can’t understand much about what I want to talk about. I mean, Kyra really doesn’t care about my feelings of current events, and Elijah just laughs at me if I talk to him. I used to have friends. I had lots of friends! Sure I had a few people who didn’t like me, but I didn’t like them either, so I didn’t care. When I worked, I was friends with everyone. I even talked to the janitor who smelled bad and talked about the same things all of the time. I talked to the crazy lady who came through my line buying bottle after bottle of rubbing alchohol to “kill the cockroaches”. I talked to the young guys who hit on me (not that there were too many of them), and I talked to the old guys who hit on me (there were quite a lot of them). I talked to my co-workers of my own age, my co-workers who were older than me, my managers, the people I trained…I talked to the boss that I had to file a sexual harrassment complaint against, and I talked to the crazy guy on Christmas Eve who tried to convince me that he was a secret agent who had to protect the children, even though he smelled bad and his pink sweatpants were stained with who knows what. I couldn’t help it. I loved to talk to people.
Now, I find myself near friendless, and I’m so lonely. How can the most precious thing a person can be allowed to do…taking care of their sweet, wonderful, perfect children…have to be such an isolating lifestyle. I know it’s not for everyone, but it is for me. I embrace my memories, but they are fleeting. The remembering can’t feel the void, and it leaves such an aching hole…to know what real, sweet, close friendship is, but not to have it. They say it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. I believe that…to an extent. A life without love would be a life not worth living, but, to lose the love of your life…how could you live afterward? Friendship is quite the same to me. After having such dear, sweet friends, the absence of them is a loneliness that I just can’t escape. I live with my best friend, but he is only able to be with me so much. Of the time we are together, there is only so much that he takes in before I see that look. The look that lets me know that I have droned on too long about something he’s not interested in, and he is not hearing me anymore. I want more. I can’t help it. I’ve had it before, and I can’t get used to not having it. I want it. Why can’t I have it?
That brings me to the next, most obvious point. Why can’t I have it? Why can’t I keep a friendship strong? Is it me? I mean, I blame it on my different circumstances…being married when friends were not…having babies…being younger…being older…but, what if it’s just me? What if I am somehow flawed in a way that I can’t see? What if it’s that no one wants to be my friend? I kind of know that I sound like a kindergartner, but I wonder. I really wonder. I don’t know. Is this a stage that I will grow out of? Am I trying to hang on to a part of life that I’m supposed to outgrow? I wish I knew. I don’t know that I would be happy with the knowledge, but at least I would know.

Chris is at work, the kids are asleep, and I am so bored! Normally, I would be watching Jeopardy to see if Ken Jennings will win again, but they are having kids week. I hate their special weeks. I want to watch Ken Jennings, and that’s about it. I have a feeling that, if he ever loses, I’m going to lose interest.

So, what to do? I have read off and on all day, but my eyes are getting tired. It’s kind of dark in my living room, so, unless I sit in the rocker under the lamp, it strains my eyes. Sitting in the rocker, though, strains my neck and back muscles.

I know that I could use this time to do some more cleaning, but I’m tired of that.

What I would most likely end up doing most days is eating, but I’m trying to refrain. I’m fat enough as it is, if I could quit eating out of boredom, it would be a good start.

Well, I finished my first book the other night. I read A Lost Lady by Willa Cather first. It was good, but not as good as My Antonia. I still liked it, though.

I have started The Stone Diaries, and it’s pretty good so far. I’ve not got far enough into it yet to know if I’m going to love it or not.

If anyone actually reads my blog, I would love for you to give me any and all book suggestions you have for me. I love to read, and am always looking for suggestions of great books to read.

If anyone is looking for someone to bestow gifts upon, feel free to check out my wishlist on Amazon. com, and buy me lots of stuff! http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html/ref=cm_wl_reg-item/104-5677621-8671103?%5Fencoding=UTF8&id=3K64GRV78PJLP

Hmm. What else? Nothing for now, I guess. Stay tuned for my thoughts on my other books.

Well, I’ve actually accomplished something for a change. Chris was home today, so I was able to get a good bit of housework done. Not all of it, but a good bit. As much as I hate it and neglect it, nothing gives me more satisfaction than getting my house clean. I wish I were better at it. I shall once again purpose to keep it clean and pristine…not that it is quite pristine at the moment…but I already doubt my follow through.
On a different note, I got Eli’s shirts and Kyra’s coat the other day. I got them all on sale for a really good price. Today, I got the coat that I ordered off of Ebay for Elijah. It is adorable, in perfect condition, and all that I hoped. I got it for twenty bucks, too. So, I am quite satisfied that we can face a winter of cold weather in good stead.
Just one more satisfying tid-bit…we got the utility bill today, and it was well over fifty dollars less than it has been being. So, we have saved a bit of money. We have been trying quite hard to add to our little savings, and things are looking good. The satisfaction of adding to our nest egg is right up there with the satisfaction of a clean house.

I had a really good night tonight. Chris took me on a date while my mom watched the kids. We went to Red Lobster, and ate a lot of shrimp. Then, Chris took me to the used bookstore. I traded in a bunch of books, and got a lot of new ones that look like they will be really good. It was nice to browse the books, and not have anyone rushing me. It was a nice break. I’m so excited about my new books. I got:

The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemmingway
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
and
The Lost Lady by Willa Cather

Me and Chris on our wedding day. It is going on four years old, but we still look pretty much the same. 

Last night, I went to bed feeling like a total loser, and, this morning, I woke up feeling better. Just like that. Elijah was staring at me with a big smile on his face when I woke up. It’s hard to keep feeling like a loser when his sweet, smiling face is the first thing you see when you open your eyes. My kids are great that way. They can make me so happy that I feel like I’m going to burst with pride and joy and thankfulness that they are mine. Of course, just yesterday, Kyra contributed to me feeling like a total loser when she took off her own dirty pull-up, covering her legs in poo, and I got mad at her. I hate when I get mad at my kids. It makes me feel so…bad. If I lose my temper and raise my voice at her, I feel like the scum of the earth. I hate to be yelled at so bad, so, even though I don’t yell at her, when I raise my voice at her and she knows I’m mad, I feel so bad. So, that was my state of affairs last night, and today, magically, my slate was clean. Kids are good that way.

I’ve got so much to do today.
I have to clean up my messy house, because I have in-law’s coming over tomorrow.
I have to go to the store to buy groceries with both the kids. Kyra isn’t hard to handle, because she’s pretty well-behaved. Eli is hard, though, because he is too big for his carrier car seat, so he has to sit in the child seat on the buggy. He doesn’t like the safety strap too much, though, but has to wear it because when I move the buggy he sometimes loses his balance. So, I usually end up carrying him. Which is really hard.
I have to get them both some new shirts, because they need some long-sleeved ones. That part is fun, though. I love shopping for clothes for them, even if it is just a few shirts.
Plus, I thought DH was going to have seven days off of work, but he is going to have to work almost all of them. He will be off tomorrow, but he has to do schoolwork all day, because it’s his only chance. I was really disappointed, because I was wanting to do something with him Saturday. I guess the bright side is the extra money he’s making, and I suppose it will be even more fun going out when we finally get to, since it took longer for it to happen. I am just really getting tired of sitting at home all the time.
If anyone is reading this, and would like to give me a couple hundred bucks to go shopping with…please feel free. Maybe that would help my “ugh” day.