But, here I am. I’ve wanted to come back so many times, and my goodness at how very, very, OHSOVERY much I have to say about the last year of my life.

At the moment though, I’m too busy noticing that someone else named my happy little corner of the innerwebs as one of the 6 best ADD/ADHD blogs. Of course, they did so a year ago this month and I just found out. Timing is a wicked mistress, I tell you. Wicked!

Nonetheless, I’m forced to admit that even when I am posting with some regularity, sometimes I think the most ADD thing about my blog is that I forget to post about my ADD.

Oooo, look, a squirrel!

Here’s hoping I’m back for a while. Or at least until someone else wants to tell me I’m awesome. You know, while I’m on safari or something.

• Lego Rockband
• Sleep
• A Christopher Moore book
• Singing
• Purple toenail polish
• My own smile
• An excellent red microbrew
• Fishing on a hot summer’s day
• Quail egg shots
• 1000 thread-count sheets
• Writing
• Seeing favorite musicians in concert
• Snuggling with a warm puppy
• Laughter
• Morel mushrooms
• A baseball game on a summer night
• Dancing
• My heart

I think this may become a list I continue to update.  Who can’t use a reminder of what is good in life?

His campaign slogan?

if you don’t vote for me, you’ll become my slave.

That’s catchy, right there.

I can’t wait to be the mother of a president!

A friend asked me today what my New Year’s resolution was going to be.  Now, it’s important to note that I haven’t made an actual New Year’s resolution in many, many a year.  Why?  Well, first, I figure any day is as good as the next to change your life.  Second, I’m social but not so much a ‘joiner’ in that kind of way.  I’m all for the support network that it can create for several people to make a change in their lives at once (hello, No Butts), but at some point in my life, I threw off that heavy mantle of peer pressure when it came to my major decisions and making them on a particular day.

I crack me up.

But, on January 1, when I thought about my friend’s question, I realized that I just so happened to be at one of those pivotal points where, over the last several days, I already had been feeling the need to make some adjustments in my life, and it just so happened that it was a good day to put it into words and solidify the concept in my mind.

I will slow my life down. The last few months have moved at a whirlwind pace.  I totally understand why I chose the pace that I did, and while it may not have been perfect, it was absolutely valid.  I’ve reached a place now, though, that I’m ready to step back from that pace and do a bit more pausing in my journey.  I’m feeling quite happy and content with that — and I also know it’s the right thing for me because I don’t give a damn if anyone else is happy and content with it; if not, they are free to keep going at their own pace.  That’s a good place for me.

I will reexamine, redefine, and take comfort in my own boundaries. Wow, I have sucked at this — for years.  I’ve been lucky to make some great friends recently though, friends who challenge me in my life and seek my counsel in their own, friends who make me laugh and smile in ways I’d forgotten I could, friends who are very excited to know me and enjoy what I bring to the table of life.  I feel blessed and lucky.  I feel accepted.  I feel equal.  And with that, I have found a perfect place to test, redefine, and assert my boundaries, for myself and others.  That is a rewarding feeling and a huge part of feeling like I now have the opportunity to slow down a bit.

I will remember my own strength. This is an easy thing for a person to misplace.  We forget that we are stronger than the sum of our parts, of our experiences, of how others have treated us.  And when we are feeling our strength, it is very easy for us to forget that it can be wielded against others, even when it is not our intention.  There is a fine line between using our strength for ourselves and letting it attack other people who don’t deserve it.  That is a line I want to pay attention to and remember, from both sides.

Welcome 2011.  May you be as bloody awesome as I plan to be to myself.

Love, love, love this damn song.  Easily my favorite Weezer song.  Happy Monday!

And yes, you’ll have to click it and head to YouTube, copyright bastiches.

DO IT!  You know you want to.  You do!  … and I want you to.  ;)

Weezer:  (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To

And was happy that I could spread the joy of watching this young man’s talent in the process.  Totally fitting.  Enjoy!

*Yes, I know the embedded police hijacked this, but click the link.  I dare you.  No, I triple dog dare you.  Oh yes, yes, I did.

Now shut up and stop calling my house.

———————————————————————————-
This message has been approved by me – and every other American because we think you’re all the worst possible choice.

Get out the Vote!

Homework today included the mysteries of the Rosary.  Which meant Bible reading and interpretation for The Boy and me – a never-boring task, and this time, since the Bible is written in a language that makes about -50% sense to a 10-year-old, let alone an Aspie 10-year-old, it led to conversation on the following topics:

• Yes, I know the the Bible is hard to read.
• Yes, you’re welcome to write your own book and to type it.
• Probably shouldn’t call it a Bible.
• Probably shouldn’t say it’s about worshipping something besides God, especially not at school.
• Minor tangent as we cover a couple of commandments,
• Yes, you’re welcome to call it “The Book of My Opinions,”
• What do you mean you don’t want to write a whole book?  You said you wanted to write a Bible, and the Bible is a book.  …  Is too!  Looks like a book, smells like a book, feels like a book – it’s a book!  (after which I quacked and was given the evil eye…)
• Explanation of the words “betrothed” and “virgin,”
• Explanation of the words “immaculate” and “conception” and that babies otherwise are not created without sex,
• (you’d think that “what is sex” would be the next question here, but some fate of the world spared me – thank you whatever fate of the world you were; that was going to be a bit more than I could handle today)
• Yes, all babies; yes, everyone who has ever had a baby has had sex; yes, that means me and your dad
• Much discourse from The Boy on not having children himself (not a new stance), then on not getting married, then on never having a relationship (all as relating to “o.m.g.  I don’t want kids”); followed by reassuring statements from me that he is not required to have children, get married, have a relationship, get married if he does have a relationship, etc.
• Me mentally thanking whatever that fate was again that we didn’t have to cover the passage that used the word “circumcision” in it.

How was your Tuesday?

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
looms but the Horror of the shade,
and yet the menace of the years
finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
how charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my Soul.

- William Ernest Henley, Invictus (1875)
(photo of Nelson Mandela’s prison cell)

Yes, I saw the film Invictus tonight, and I now feel compelled both to read Mandela’s writings, read more of Henley’s work, and to at least once in my life attend a rugby match.  While I encourage anyone who has not seen the film yet to do so (with the possible exception of Zell because soon his head is going to just explode from all this sappy stuff several of us have been posting of late – and I think he will thank me for saying that), and while I could quote the inspirational bits of the script until we all turned blue, this one is the one that most touched me — because if there is anything that I think the world at large and we as individuals need as much as inspiration, it is forgiveness.

I was thinking about how you [can] spend 30 years in a tiny cell and come out ready to forgive the people who put you there. ~Invictus (Francois Pienaar)

Think about that for a minute.  Seriously.

And then think about the forgiveness that maybe you still have not given.

Forgiveness does not require publicity.  It does not require making the forgiven aware.  There is nothing that demands allowing someone to stay in your life after you have forgiven them, and it is absolutely not about turning the other cheek.  Forgiveness is personal; it is about your own heart, your own soul, and your own release of burden.  It is not about the other person or people or group.  It is not easy or simple.  It is not righteous or pious.  It is not holy.  Forgiving others is not about love.

Having a grievance or resentment is like drinking poison and thinking it will kill your enemy. ~Nelson Mandela

Forgiveness is about peace.

I don’t normally do this because I’m not a great fan of blogs that task the reader, so while I phrase it as such, please do not consider yourself tasked.  I don’t ask you to give you homework or even to ask you to share — though you are welcome to do so if you’d like; the beauty of the internet is that we at least have the opportunity to learn from every other person on the planet with bandwidth.  But I give you this prompt strictly in that effort, that I might share a thought that will maybe help someone toward finding their own peace.

Who is the jailor whom you have not forgiven?  We all have them – plural.  As we feel wronged throughout our lives, we keep a book and a tally beside the names inside.  Some people have their own page – maybe more than one.  Without forgiveness, we keep ourselves inside the cell even after the door has opened.  Without forgiveness, we continually fight to hold onto the anger and the fear and pain that we are so accustomed to, and we repeat the same cycle again and again, hurting ourselves all the more.

More difficult a journey than forgiving others may be that of forgiving ourselves.  My own experience has been that such as it is impossible to fully love another until you are able to fully love yourself, I’m not sure that it’s possible to truly forgive others until you are able to forgive yourself.  Both were lip service until I had the counseling to find my way to loving myself, and then I understood the truth of that statement.  Forgiveness has worked the same way for me, and forgiving myself has been a process that has required maintenance.  There is none so harsh a judge as oneself, and I have definitely had my moments when things aren’t going the way I’d like/hope/wish which make it very easy to wake up and find that I have wandered back toward or into my cell.

Are you your own jailor?  It is not enough to release yourself from your prison.  Love yourself, forgive yourself, and you will grant yourself the gift of peace.

Forgiveness liberates the soul.  It removes fear.  That is why it is such a powerful weapon. ~Invictus (Nelson Mandela)

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my Soul.

The realization of who he was made it a lot funnier that my dog had wanted to murderize him for having the audacity to walk onto my front porch and knock on my door.  Maybe it was just that she didn’t like his hat.  Though she did settle right down when I went out to talk to him.  Of course, I always wonder if it ever came to the point that someone had a gun to my head, would she sense my fear and attempt to shred them or would she roll over so they could scratch her belly?

I gotta admit it:  He was hot.  And when I got a little starstruck (shaddap) at seeing U.S. Marshal on his card, he was also very humble about it.

I really should have asked to see his handcuffs.