O Blogger, Where Are Thou?

I am back.
One thing that kept me away lately was having my phone line yanked from my house by a passing tractor trailer. Crazy eh? Now we are back on the grid, connected to the interweb. Yeehaw!

Does anyone else find patterns in their life to be self perpetuating?
For example: When I am doing well, I seem to just get better. I am on the ball: the house is sparkling, I bake and cook up a flurry of culinary varieties, I speak Irish like I'm smart or something, read to my girls so they will be smart or something, exercise, juice, take time outdoors - and all with a big smile. I feel confident because I'm accomplishing all this stuff, and things are going great. With this confidence and good energy, I can just keep accomplishing more!

Then these times happen when I'm not doing well. My brain seems to be on slow motion, I can't manage to think of Irish, and start to feel stupid. I am exhausted, so I don't clean or cook, so the house gets messy and we don't get nutritious food prepared. The mess then gets overwhelming, so I eat 'comfort food' [read: chocolate], I don't spend any time in the sun, can't find the strength/gumption to juice or clean, and my response to the under-achieving ends up perpetuating the exhaustion, stress and discouragement.

What happens to break these cycles I'm not sure, but they seem to spontaneously turn around. One day you are Mrs. Over-Achiever-Cleaver, the next, you feel you are barely hanging on.

Weird.
Just life, I guess. Life, and hormonal fluctuations, likely.

----------------------

I have been really preoccupied by world issues lately: hunger, poverty, disease, injustice. One evening in particular, Niamh had been playing on the floor happily, but then the fun ran out, as it does, and she started crying. It took me a minute to get to her, but as soon as I was there to talk to her, she was smiling again. Just wanted someone to talk to her and engage her.

Then it just struck me, the countless orphans in the world, and all they are doing without. They aren't any person's #1 priority, there isn't anyone that they know will always come for them, or for whom there is that feeling of security and familiarity. Most are probably in the care of some nurse, state employee or volunteer, many of whom are great I'm sure, but it is just not the same as the one Mommy or Daddy all the time, who loves you like nobody else. I just thought how very fortunate my girls are to have both parents, in the same home, who adore them. It is just so sad to think of the baby out there just like Niamh, who doesn't have a mommy to come smile at her when that might be all she needs, to know you are there.

There now, aren't you glad I came back so I could depress you? Better luck next time maybe.