On Headaches

My first husband didn't believe me when it came to my headaches. I guess he thought I was exaggerating to get out doing things I didn't want to do. He didn't really get headaches, lucky bastard. 

I was never lying though. No, "not today, honey, I have a headache" games from me. Just waves of pain and a need for quiet stillness in the dark. 

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I've always been susceptible to them. Sinus headaches, allergy headaches, stress headaches, migraines. I manage a lot of life through the haze of some kind of headache or another because if I gave in and went to bed every time I had a headache, I'd be there more often than not. 

People who don't suffer from headaches really can't understand what the pain is like, much the way people who've never broken a bone or never birthed a child cannot truly understand what a sufferer is suffering. 

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I woke with a doozy this morning. Felt like a hot piece of steal was piercing the left side of my head, with a point of impact feeling on the forehead, and something else in the middle of my skull, like a hot golf ball swelling and trying to burst its way out though my cheek. 

Waking with a headache is especially terrible. Like the day has pounced before you were even alert enough to defend yourself. Unfair. Dirty pool, old boy. 

I tried vacating the bedroom and going through the morning motions--letting the dogs out to pee, feeding them, making a cup of tea. Sometimes moving makes things better. I'm a medication-avoider. I don't like to take pills, even basic pain-killers, if there's something else I can do and feel better. 

Not this time, though. The pain kept increasing, making me worry I was going to vomit and giving me heat waves, even after I caved and took a sinus pill, so I had to wake Sweetman on his holiday and get him to take over dog duty so I could work on finding some relief. It took a range of things: that sinus pill, a nasal rinse, a shower (for the steam), lots of nose-blowing, a defensive sleep nap with the pillow shoved against my aching cheek to apply counter pressure. 

But I woke with only the residual ache and a cautious feeling. Whew! I'm relieved it ended after only a couple of hours, and that my head chose a day off to attack me on, so I didn't have to try and create sub lesson plans through that pain. My best guess is that my head was angry about the amount of dust I got into yesterday cleaning up to host Thanksgiving. I hadn't done anything else that usually triggers a pain wave like this. 

Any other headache sufferers out there? What do you do to find relief, besides medication? 

IWSG: Seeing the Weird in the Ordinary

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking.

If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

September 2 question - If you could choose one author, living or dead, to be your beta partner, who would it be and why?

The awesome co-hosts for the September 2 posting of the IWSG are PJ Colando, J Lenni Dorner, Deniz Bevan, Kim Lajevardi, Natalie Aguirre, and Louise - Fundy Blue!

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I've been fascinated with Shirley Jackson's work since I first encountered her book We Have Always Lived in the Castle in my library when I was weird thirteen year old kid. 

I've returned to her work over and over since then, revisiting her work once a decade or so--re-reading favorites and finding new pieces I've missed. Even though my own writing is not disturbing in the same vein as Shirley's, I feel a connection to her, as if she speaks something inarticulate from deep inside my own consciousness. 

Recently, I watched the quasi-biopic of her, based on the novel by Susan Scarf Merrell, and that feeling of connection was only strengthened. (The book/movie isn't accurate in a biographical sense, BTW, but it evokes a feel that I believed). 

Like Shirley, I am ill-suited to be a housewife, even though I love my husband, my home, and our children and sometimes revel in taking care of them--and sometimes wish they weren't there, so I could focus on my life of words. We'd have that push and pull in common. 

I, too,  have a creative bent, and though I look pretty darn normal on the outside, it's more than a little weird inside my brain. Sometimes my mundane life and the worlds within my mind don't mesh well.

It's probably why her horror works so well for me. We both see the weird in the seemingly ordinary.

Luckily, I'm living my adult years in a different era than she did--she died six years before I was born. The expectation that I would marry and devote my life to only the work of household and children still lingers in the corners of my experience with other misogynist mumbo-jumbo, but no one is terribly shocked to learn that I work full time, or that I write. Those limiting views of femininity and a woman's role in the world have lost cachet and are no longer the norm, at least not that in my peer group. 

I don't face social censure for the kinds of things that I write either. Not like she did. I also have a better husband than she did (at least as far as you can judge someone else's husband from what you see from the outside of the relationship).

I don't know that Shirley would have liked my work. She might accuse me of being too light or fluffy. But I suspect that if I could thicken my skin enough to take her criticism, my work would be the better for it. She would call me on it when I try to pull back from hard emotional moments or take it too easy on characters I've grown attached to, even more than my real-life critique partners do (and they don't really pull any punches--especially not Rebecca). 

Would Shirley want or respect my opinion on her work? Maybe? I do have a lot of practice, as a middle school teacher, giving constructive criticism kindly and with support and compassion interlaced. And my admiration is sincere. I would mean the praise I offered. 

Given the chance, I'd sit on the veranda with her and talk about the life of words, even if I had to put up with her cigarette smoke to do it. I like to think we'd get each other. 

Plus Sides to the Pandemic at la Casa Bryant

I lean towards optimism in most circumstances, trusting that time and energy spent can improve most situations. At least I believe that nothing gets any better if you don't try something.

Looking at our leadership in my country right now, holding onto that optimism has been harder. But at least I'm in this with an intelligent and thoughtful partner, who has a very useful skillset for managing an isolationist life for a while.

And we're lucky, truly, on a lot of fronts. We're all still healthy. Both adults are able to work from home and are still being paid. The kiddo at home is introverted and digitally connected to her friends, so is handling social distancing pretty well for someone her age. The dog is old enough to appreciate a slow life.

So, looking to the sunny side: here are some plus sides to the pandemic at our house.

1. We're playing with our toys. Over the years, we've collected a lot of them: video games, board games, legos, musical instruments, books, craft supplies, DIY project tools, recipe books, etc. An embarrassment of riches really: more than we can realistically use.

But with extra time at home, we're digging into all these wonderful things and enjoying them. Go past us! For buying things even though we didn't have time for them? At least we're occupied now, without having to shop while we're money worried.

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#funinthewoods with #mygirl today. #natureheals #sunshine

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2. We're getting out in nature more. I'm a walker. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll see that my feed is full of pictures of beauty I spot on my daily nature walks. It's my main stress relief.

Because I'm a teacher and my hours are early, even during the winter months, I can usually make it to a trail with a little daylight left to burn. But, my daughter is not so much a walker, and my husband isn't usually home in daylight, so it's usually just me and the pup.

But, without commutes to worry about and with the kiddo legit needing a stretch of the legs, we're able to get out into the woods together. It's a real joy to me to share this love with my people (and still the pupper).

3. Lots of family time. My husband and I have been feeling the rush of time whooshing past us in recent years, as our baby turns into a teenager and our older child becomes an adult.

We've struggled to arrange our days so that we get time together as a family, time for each of us with our daughters, time for just the two of us, etc. all while still holding down demanding day jobs and handling the business of the household.

It's been lovely to be right there for our daughter when she hits a bump in completing her school-from-home assignments, to help her problem solve or just be amazed by how well she does this on her own.

We're playing games and watching shows together. We're really in tune with how everyone is feeling and doing a good job balancing the needs of each of us.

I think we'll miss this part when the speed of life picks back up.

4. The house is getting cleaner and better organized. When it's time to "take a break" from our work from home situations, we're each handling household tasks: cleaning up messes that have been allowed to linger, changing out loads of laundry, running the dishwasher, re-organizing storage situations, sorting things, etc.  It gets us moving and clears mental space as well by making our surroundings more pleasant.

It's lovely to slip these tasks into down moments of the work day, instead of struggling to do them *after* work when we're exhausted and wanting some relaxation and more playful togetherness.

We're even making progress on our giant attic project (building an entire new room up there for game storage). The supplies were mostly already purchased, and now we can repurpose that commuting time for mudding, sanding, and (hopefully soon) painting!

5. We're eating better. We're planner-aheaders, the sort of people who usually have a deep freeze full of meats and boxes and cans lining the shelves waiting for use. So, without panic shopping or hoarding, we've stayed pretty well supplied.

Since I'm not coming home from school emotionally and physically exhausted from managing 160 children across the day, our dinners have become more luxuriant affairs, rather than the "what can I make in 30 minutes that is palatable?" trick we'd mastered so well.

So, new recipes, and old favorites that "take too long" for a school night. Cooking together because we're all there. Dancing to music while the potato pancakes fry. I'm enjoying the prep time as much as the eating.


What's a plus side to isolation time for you and yours? Anything you'd like to hold onto when life returns to something more like normal? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Summer's End

LeSigh. Can summer really already be over? I didn't get it all done again, of course. Doing *everything* I want to do every summer would require at least five women, and my cloning experiments failed (my daughters turned out to be their own women, with their own things they want to do).

Still, it was a good summer. As I start to have end-of-summer panic, I need to remind myself of that.

Longtime readers already know that I'm a middle school Spanish teacher in my day job, and that writing novels is my secret identity (which I'm trying to make less secret, so people will know I write books and maybe even buy them).

So, summer is, in part, about self-care and recovery for me. It's also my time to live life as a full time writer for a few weeks. So, I'm always trying to balance writing productivity with rest and recuperation and progress on all those life tasks that are hard to complete when I'm not available during business hours (August-June).

To feel good, I really need all three things: rest, writing, and life/project time.

As I write this, I'm at the beach, making sure that I end my time with sea salt on my skin and a brain scrubbed clean by sand. I did pretty well on the rest and recuperation angle.

I walked damn near every day with my dog, ate breakfast (a luxury I can't find time for during school), read sixteen books (and may finish another one or two this week), visited my parents for a few days, took a nap a few times (I'm terrible at napping, even when I need to), and watched more television than I watched in the entire six previous months (I finished a few shows: Good Omens, Wynonna Earp, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Black Lightning, The Boys, and, of course, Stranger Things). I started Downton Abbey, so that'll probably take me all school year to finish now :-)

Home/life productivity gets a middling score. There was one big thing I wanted to get done involving paperwork and I didn't get there, because I couldn't find all the right pieces. I admit to procrastinating on looking, and I'm mad at my past self for being so bad at sticking to ONE organizational system for important papers so you can find them when you need them. Luckily there isn't a hard deadline on that one, so I can keep looking and get it done this fall.

I did work out some financing for a home improvement project that will make a big difference to our lives, and I did get my home office several steps closer to the space I want it to be. I'm especially proud of that since everything I've done in there, I've paid for with writing money only (which is why it's all DIY and second hand, but still: I paid for it with my writing money).

Some of my home/life project energies went to my oldest daughter, helping her arrange her college monies for fall and move into her FIRST APARTMENT! (yikes, I'm old).

Writing went well. I set aside the novel I've been working on for the past year (YA dystopian romance, working title: Thursday's Children). It needs more time to simmer before I can get that dish ready to serve and I finally admitted it.

I started a new novel (gothic romance, working title: The Architect and The Heir) and made lots of progress on my first all-indie project, a collection of 13 weird tales I plan to release this Halloween, choosing and organizing the stories, self-editing, arranging for cover art and professional proofreading, and learning some new software for formatting.

My daily writing chain is now 2,144 days longs (nearly six years), and summer's work included nearly 35,000 words on the new novel. It's flowing well, which speaks to the importance of following your passion in your writing (another balance: between focus and dogged stubbornness).

I've wanted to write a gothic romance since I first read one, when I was around eleven years old. It took me a while to actually do it, but it's the most fun I've had since the first Menopausal Superhero novel.

I think I probably wrote this post primarily for myself, to look back on in a couple of weeks when I'm haranguing myself and accusing myself of having wasted my entire summer once I'm buried up to the neck in schoolwork. After all, I hold myself to very high expectations on a lot of fronts. I'm meaner to myself than I would ever be to anyone else. So, it's good to make myself admit from time to time, that I got this!

Thanksgiving at la casa Bryant

A traditional Thanksgiving is a lot of work. (I know: #firstworldproblems) Even in families that divide the cooking and hosting labor, there are still many many tasks on that to-do list to do it up "right." We don't live near our extended families, so that's not possible for us.

As much as I love Thanksgiving foods and having a lovely meal with my loved ones, I don't love the work. Especially not at the end of November, when middle school teachers like me feel like they might drown in the to-do list at school, if the drama doesn't kill us first.

It definitely doesn't feel like a holiday to me to take the primary cook (me) and make her cook more. So, a few years ago, when I was overextended and making myself crazy, we agreed to take it down a notch. We order Thanksgiving from Weaver Street Market. The food is good. It's still beautiful and festive, but the time and stress is cut in half or maybe even less. I've never regretted that decision (and if my family does, they are kind enough not to say so).

Now, when I sit down at the table, I don't fall asleep in the mashed potatoes. Instead, I have energy for making hand turkeys with the kids (yes, we make the teenager do it, too), and watching really cheesy fun movies and playing board games. I get to jump in the leaf piles because I'm not hovering over something delicate in the kitchen.

That's some giving (in the give and take sense) and I am thankful yet again for my family. May this holiday (if you celebrate) bring you joy and relaxation as well as yummy treats.

Snow Days and Being Snowed Under

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I'm a modern woman. I bring home the bacon (at least the part my husband doesn't bring home), fry it up in the pan…and all that jazz. Mostly this means I feel like I'm holding back an avalanche all the time, constantly on triage to deal with whatever just exploded. Day job, writing life, children, dog, house: it all takes more "me" to manage than there is, so on any given day I'm only managing it some it well. Choose your metaphor: treading water, running through soft sand, juggling. It all comes down to more to do than there is time for.

Then come snow days. And I'm stuck at home. I can't go to school and teach other people's children. I tell you, snow days can really be a blessing. Sure, they add a level of chaos to our lives, but while I'm snowed under outside, I can push a plow through some of the messes in here!

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Teaching is rough in that taking a sick day doesn't let you out of the work--you still have to prepare the lesson for your substitute, fever or not! But on a snow day, no one is teaching. So unlike my husband who can and therefore had to work from home, I was free to work on other things. I can't work from home (except on a few of the myriad tasks). My classes aren't here.

This year's snow days were beautifully timed for me. I had just received two sets of edits on two different projects, both due at almost the same time. (They weren't supposed to come at the same time, but, you know: life and delays). Even though snow days mean that my own children require more attention and that neighborhood children will become part of the fray, it still meant that I could spare several more hours for writing projects than is normal on a workday.

Heck I even had time to watch a couple of movies with my children.

Am I caught up? Heck no! But I think I've uncovered the top third of my head, including my nose. I can almost breathe! Hurray for snow days!

Another Summer Over, and What Have You Done?

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Whoosh! That was quick. I swear that summer (and life in general) goes by more rapidly with every passing year. Even my children seemed to feel like this season of rest and rejuvenation was too brief. The way I remember it, when I was a kid, summer was endless, to the point that you were actually starting to get bored and anxious to go back to school.

Although I chose a cartoon that suggests I don't like school, I actually do. And the beginning of a school year is like a clean slate and fresh start every year. Each year, I get to take what I did in the previous year (and all the years before that), pull out the good stuff to reuse and reshape the rest of it into something that will work better. It's like having a re-do button once a year.

And I really do love teaching, even though it wears me out and frustrates the heck out of me sometimes. Kids are way better people than adults sometimes. There's something just this side of magical about being there when they make a leap and grow, and that's an experience I often have eight or ten times a day.

Plus, it's work that matters. Capital M Matters, in that deep, cosmic sense. I make a difference. I've been a teacher for twenty years now, so that's something like two or three thousand people (at a minimum) whose lives I've been a part of. Enough of them keep in touch, that I know I've had some positive effects.

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So, I'm happy to be back in the classroom. But I still mourn the open space of summer. It amounted to something like seven weeks this year, and, while that helps, it's not enough to smooth all my edges and build my stamina back up. So, I'm looking back at what I said I wanted from summer.

1. Writing, lots and lots of writing. Finish the sequel and submit it. Revise the opening to Cold Spring and resubmit it. Finish writing the novella for the superhero novella and submit it. Write a few more short stories. Resubmit (revising if necessary) everything that has come back rejected. Decide which of my projects will get my hard focus next: the second book in the Cold Spring trilogy? the third book in the menopausal superheroes? the middle grades novel? 

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Well, I did a lot of these things. Sequel? check! R&R for Cold Spring? Check! Novella? Check! a few more short stories…well, no. I've begun one but not finished it, though I did revise three others. Resubmit? Check! Though some rejections have cycled back around again and it's time to resubmit yet again. Decisions? Well, sorta. I've begun work on the Cold Spring book, but it's slow going. I'm not going to do any big work towards the three-quel for my menopausal heroes until the second book has made it through to editing. Apparently, that middle grades novel is still sitting in the drawer waiting for its moment in the sun. So all in all, I'd say I did pretty well on this front.

2. Reading, lots and lots of reading. I struggle to find time to read during the school year, and I love to swim in the sea of books all summer long.

I still want more reading time. But that's the way of it when you love books. According to my

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Goodreads stats, I read fifteen books this summer. I also beta read two books. I'm nine books ahead on my challenge to read fifty-two books this year (one per week). Of course, I didn't really put a dent in my TBR list, because I picked up just as many new books as I read! Still, all in all, I feel good about the amount I read this summer.

3. Summer outings: swimming, beaching, farmer's markets, berry-picking, hiking, visiting grandparents, GEN CON!

This was probably the part I felt most disappointed in. Making all that writing progress kept me at my computer a lot. Coupled with some really really hot weather and high humidity all summer, I didn't hike, berry pick, farmer's market, beach or anything else outside much. I did help teach the little one to ride her bike (which wasn't on my list, but was on hers), so there's an extra. Me and the youngest spawn also got some nice time with grandparents and I did get my trip to Gen Con (which was awesome). I wrote some articles for GeekDad about various things there, too. Next summer, I vow to get out more though. We'll just have to go early, before it gets too hot!

4. Sleeping and resting: let those days start a little later and actually wake up feeling rested. Take naps. Watch a little TV.

I slept till eight or nine o'clock nearly every day. That may not sound late. But I have a kid under ten years old. And during the school year, I get up between five-thirty and six. So, it was a slice of heaven for me. I didn't take naps, but I did get to watch all of Orphan Black with my teenager, and some of Agents of Shield, so, for me, that's a lot of TV.

5. Household catch-up: All that stuff that piled up all year and is now a fire hazard in the garage. Yep, time to bring out the backhoe and deal with that stuff. 

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 So, I can claim only minimal progress on this front. Truth be told, as much as I hate living with the disorder, I also hate the work of handling the disorder. It makes me hate my previous self who thought it was okay to let things pile up. So, there's a path begun through the garage, but it's still one onerous task. (sigh) It might be easier to just to move.

I can drive myself crazy sometimes, focusing only on what is still on the to-do list, instead of knowing how much is on the "done list" (like one of my online friends advises). So, this post was a good one for me. It was a good summer. Next summer will be even better!

What's on my dining room table today

My dining room table is the major clutter magnet of our household. My guess is that it's some kind of gravity well formed because there's a wide flat surface which only has a purpose a couple of times a day. Objects from throughout the house are mysteriously drawn to it and have to be removed before dinner can be eaten.

Today, there's:

• a cat purse
• vampire fangs
• a treatise on German longsword
• a bar of soap shaped like a brain
• a bug jar (thankfully sans bug)
• a Tribble
• Christmas ornaments
• a ten foot balloon (not inflated)
• a lego catalog
• two boxes of tissues
• hair detangler for kids
• a taekwondo class schedule
• several books
• an ad for the library's book sale

I love my family. There's a lot of awesome here. 

Had we but world enough, and time

How can it already be 5:00? I didn't get done with half of what was on my list for today.  (sigh) That's a normal Saturday, too.

It's another busy weekend.  And I really do want to do most of what's in it. But I wish I had an assistant or a maid to iron out all the details so I could just show up and enjoy. How do people without a partner do this?

Item #1: Watch my older daughter play soccer.  Easy enough, right? Preparation: wash uniform & stinky shin guards and shoes; choose, shop and gather team snack; an hour in the car (repeat weekly). Once, I'm there though, I get to sit and talk to other moms about how great our kids are. That's a fair trade.

Item #2: Hosting a playdate for the younger daughter.  Preparation: cleaning up her room, so there's room to play in it; pumping up the balls and bike tires which have gotten flat; planning, shopping, and preparing little girl pleasing foods; making logistical arrangements with the friend's mom. This one stays pretty intense:  managing disagreements, ensuring cleanup of each activity before we move on, taking care of boo-boos, etc. Surprisingly, though, I sat for almost 30 minutes during today's playdate!

Item #3: Going to the movies with the husband. Preparation: finding time to shower and make myself presentable, arranging for babysitting, finding the checkbook so I can pay the babysitter (one of two things I still do by check), emptying that big purse I only carry when going to movies or other events where I have contraband to sneak in, getting movie tickets (it's a movie festival thing, requires a little more plan ahead). If I can just there, all I really have to fight is my own tired-ness.  Luckily, they have coffee!

Item #4: Hosting my writing group.  Preparation: Cleaning house to the point of feeling okay about letting friends enter, preparing food for eight, reading the pieces up for critique and preparing thoughtful commentary, making a plan to keep the family happy enough without me for 4 hours, calming my nerves (it's my work on the chopping block this week).  Luckily, this is a group of busy women . . . they very politely never notice the parts of cleaning I didn't find time for.

Item #5: Gaming.  This is the closest I get to "just show up and enjoy it"  . . .because the hubby is the GM.  Of course, that means I'll need to get the children out of his hair long enough for him to prep. Hmmmm . . .

First world problems for sure, worrying about logistics for my very busy leisure life. I'm a very lucky lady, to get to do all these awesome things with all these awesome people.

Some Guy I used to Know: Seeing the Ex

I got my daughter back on Friday.  That meant I had to see the ex. Strange how that was still stressful.

It's been eight years since we divorced, and I've never had any doubts that divorce was the right decision for me (and, so far as I know, for him).  It wasn't one of those cases where one spouse clung to the relationship and the other wanted out. It was decisively over. We've both moved, remarried, and started new families.  It's good.

But I still invested way too much energy into worrying about how my house looked and how I looked. Three days before he comes to town is probably too late to get the hardwood floors redone and lose the last twenty pounds of baby weight anyway. It shouldn't matter to me at this point.

Maybe it's just competition? Do I need to one-up him?

Or is it revenge? Like the Talmud teaches, "Live well. It is the best revenge."

Could it be just the strangeness of the situation? We've only seen each other in person three times since our split, all three in connection with getting M to her seasonal visitations.

We're good exes.  We communicate well about our shared daughter's needs and visitation setups via email and phone.  We plan for her future together without rancor. He is utterly reliable for the agreed upon support and not pushy or invasive about the day to day runnings of our lives.

I felt lousy the day they arrived. I had a medical procedure two days before (which shouldn't have left me feeling badly as long as it did). So, in the end, my house was clean, but not sparkling. I looked okay for a sick woman, but not the picture of health and wealth. I didn't even feel well enough to dress nicely. Soft pants and my favorite zombie teeshirt.

During his actual visit (a very brief tour of the house--he'd never seen it and M really wanted him to see her room and home), I felt very little.  I noticed the physical ways he had changed and remembered some things that I don't particularly like about him, but I didn't become awash in angst or have a flash of nostalgia for the friend he once was.

It was rather like having the mom of one of M's friends come by. I care that my house looks well-kept so that they will think well of my family, but I only know this person through M. I have no personal investment.

Maybe he really is now just some guy I used to know.

Mother-in-Law Clean

My mother-in-law is a very nice woman. She has been open and accepting of me for all my oddities from the very beginning. I have every reason to believe that she is happy that I and my daughter (from a previous marriage) joined her family, and added another granddaughter to the mix shortly thereafter.

This doesn't at all change the fact that I am in a mild panic because she is coming to visit tomorrow.

I think it's because she's a good housekeeper. I'm not.

Everyone has the level of clutter and mess they are willing to live with. Hers is very low. Mine, much higher.

We have several layers of "acceptably clean" depending on who's coming to dinner.

Just us four: If the table has too much on it, we eat dinner on TV trays together.

My sister and brother-in-law: We clear the diningroom table.

My own parents: I change all the bedding and make sure all seating is clear. Done.

A party: Every major surface is clear. I have located and made accessible the appropriate toys, games, etc. A lot of cooking happens.

My mother-in-law: I have never achieved a level of cleanliness for this that relieves all my stress. I think it would require starting over in a new house each time and not admitting the children or the dog.

So, why is that?

I imagine her coming into my house and suddenly I can see how cluttered and dusty we are.

I don't really think she judges me or us for this. She knows how ridiculously busy we (I) am--working full time, feeding everybody reasonably well every day, getting the tween and the preschooler to all the right locations, finding time for my own writing, and sometimes putting my feet up and watching an old movie. I also sleep more than she does.

Is it a kind of competition? That seems silly. But, just because something is silly doesn't mean I don't suffer over it. (Remind me to tell you about how jealous I get over my so-not-a-flirt husband sometime.) Maybe I really do feel like my house has to be as neat as hers if she's going to see it. It's unrealistic: we have a lot more stuff and a lot more day to day chaos. But since when have I limited my desires to what is realistic?

A kinder view: maybe I'm just being a kid. Maybe I need that gold star, that moment when she says (again), "Wow! The place looks great! You must be taking good care of my son and grandchildren. You're awesome!" It's actually pretty funny to imagine her making that speech as she walks through my door tomorrow afternoon.

Still, maybe it's good she comes to visit from time. It makes me strive for that impossible level "Mother-in-Law Clean." My house looks way better than it usually does.

It may even last a day or two after she leaves.