I cannot remember what I wrote here last.  Something about a spilled Super Big Gulp?  If so, that means the last time I wrote something was Monday night.

On Tuesday, I was an unofficial chaperone for a first-grade field trip to a Children’s Museum.  The beauty of being an unofficial chaperone is that you aren’t allowed to ride on the bus and that you aren’t officially in charge of anyone but yourself.  And if you are 44 years old, you are pretty easy to be in charge of.  You also get to ride in your husband’s red Cadillac, the one with seat warmers.

String together the Children’s Museum trip with work and suddenly, Tuesday has turned into Wednesday.

Oh!  Today was Wednesday, wasn’t it?  I took my daughter to school, came home, told myself that a thirty minute nap would be just the thing and an hour and  a half later, dragged myself out of bed and into the shower.  I rushed to the grocery store for a few essential items and returned home behind a string of cars which all seemed determined to drive under the speed limit.  What is wrong with people who drive under the speed limit?  Do they conspire to make me late?

I work split shifts and while a split shift has many benefits–okay, some benefits–it does make me feel as if I work all afternoon and all night, too.  In between shifts, I have enough time to clean up the kitchen, make a mess in the kitchen and sometimes, read a little.  At least soccer/football practice has ended for the year, so I no longer have to shuttle children to various fields.  Tonight, I barely had time to read my current novel, a Jodi Picoult book which makes me feel like I’m watching a magician work–how does she do it?  It looks impossible and impossibly easy at the same time.

My sister stopped by tonight, so we chatted for awhile.  Then I dragged her to the primary school so I could pick up the boxes and boxes of cookie dough I ordered from the school fundraiser.  I will either have enough cookie dough to last me for a year or I will become very very very fat from eating too many cookies.

Before I knew it, it was time to work again.

Now it’s so late that it’s early.

And I’m going to bed.

Today is my sort-of day off.  I’ve arranged my schedule so I work six nights a week, but I have off Saturdays, all day Sunday (until 9 p.m.) and except for an hour on Monday mornings, the rest of Mondays off (until 9  p.m.).  All told, I work forty hours a week, except when I work a little more.

After a very busy weekend (soccer game, Halloween preparations–including carving three pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns and costume-creating–and trick-or-treating . . . followed by church on Sunday, followed by a nap and a trip to the movies with the two youngest kids) I climbed into my husband’s red Cadillac to lollygag and gallivant.

First stop?  7-11 for a refill of my Super Big Gulp.  It only costs a dollar and eight cents for about as much Diet Coke as you can drink in one afternoon.  The sun was shining, the red and yellow leaves fluttering in a light breeze.  Blue sky, open road, and three hours to myself.  I was like Thelma and Louise without the killing and the thievery and the scary scene in the parking lot.  And the scarves and the convertible.  Other than that, exactly like them.

And then, as I drove on a quiet road, my Super Big Gulp took a look around and decided to leap to certain death.  I gasped and tried to grasp the enormous cup, but it had jumped head first and emptied itself on the driver’s side floorboard, narrowly missing my Chuck Taylors, but splashing on my socks.

I drove straight to a Dollar Store with only my toes touching the accelerator . . . my left foot was propped above the swamp of Diet Coke and I held the heel of my right foot out of the icy liquid.

I purchased two rolls of paper towels and spent a good thirty-minutes sopping up the spill.  As I did so, I realized that the only good that could come of such a catastrophe would be a recounting of the event in 140 characters on Twitter.  And so, as soon as my feet stopped squishing on the mat, I grabbed my iPhone and typed a message with one finger.

My Twitter message also posts on Facebook and within minutes, Facebook commenters shared their own catastrophes until I was quite full of mirth which turns out to be even better than being full of Diet Coke.  Almost.

I headed to Taco Time for my favorite soft taco.  I realized that I had very little time before I needed to pick up my daughter.  I headed toward Goodwill to browse the bookshelves, but as I drove, I saw that I would not have enough time.  Instead, I pulled into the local German convenience store to pick up the hard-to-find dark chocolate I like to keep in my purse.  Then I hurried to the school.  I knew I’d be about ten minutes early, but I carry a novel around in my purse and planned to read. (Jodi Picoult, if you must know.)

I pulled my car into the back parking lot of the school and noticed the children were at recess.  I could see my daughter’s blond curls across the playground.  I watched the kids for a few minutes, pondered the strangeness of the late recess.   After all, it was 3:15 p.m., only ten minutes from dismissal.

And then it hit me.

I grabbed my iPhone and checked the time:  2:15 p.m.  No one had told the red Cadillac that Daylight Savings Time had come to an end.  Alas.  It was 3:15 p.m. in the Cadillac, but 2:15 p.m. everywhere else (in this time zone, anyway).)

So I drove home and started a project (searching desperately for my 2007 photographs–which were mixed up with the 2008 photographs and you really do not want to know what a complicated mess I’ve made of my photographs).

Forty minutes later, back to the school to pick up my daughter.

Perhaps it’s a good thing I don’t get out into the world very often.  I clearly cannot handle it.

At least I did not shoot a man dead and have to run from the law and drive off a cliff.

That’s me, always looking on the bright side.

I’ve scarcely left my house since last weekend.  My job responsibilities (for an online company) have increased recently and I keep accidentally working an extra hour or two each day.  I honestly don’t mean to, but then I look up and instead of seeing midnight on the clock, I see the small hand approaching two.

So I shut off the computer at 1:30 a.m. or 2: 00 a.m. and fall into bed, only to be awakened before 8 a.m. by my daughter.  My 11-year old son gets himself into the shower and off to school and sometimes (I am ashamed to even acknowledge this), I don’t even hear a thing.  (My husband leaves the house at 6 a.m.  I rarely wake up when he gets up and goes.  I know.  You had pictured me frying bacon and eggs while wearing an apron over my frilly bathrobe each morning, huh?  Well guess what?  I don’t have a frilly bathrobe.  And I’m a terrible wife, definitely not Southern-bred, because I have rarely cooked my husband breakfast before work.  Okay, not rarely.  Never.)

I’m not a morning person.

My daughter is a lot like me.  The other morning, she crawled into bed with me. She asked me to set the alarm for 18 minutes.  I said okay, set my phone for 18 minutes.  When the alarm rang, I said, “You need to get into the shower.”  She looked at the clock and said, “One more minute.  I’ll get up at 8:20.”

I have never told her that I prefer to get up on the multiples of five.  I don’t like to get up at 7:58.  I’ll wait until 8 on the dot.  If I sleep until 8:01, I’ll have to wait until 8:05.  If I miss 8:05, I’ll have to wait until 8:10.  I have some rules that must be followed.  This is not at all weird.

This can, however, cause some problems, like being late.

And so it did that morning with my daughter.  I had to sign her in and get a tardy slip that morning.  All because of the multiples of five thing that she doesn’t even know about.

So I take her to school.  Before school began I had these lofty plans about walking her to school and then continuing on for a long walk so I could get in my exercise.  The reality has turned out to be more like this:  Throw on sweatshirt and yoga pants.  Drive daughter to school.  Drive home, crawl into bed, check out email and Facebook on iPhone.  Doze off while listening to Regis and Kelly (after first marveling at Kelly’s perfectly toned, muscular arms).  Wake up reluctantly in time to shower and fire up the computer.  Begin work at noon.

This is bad for several reasons.

1)  I’m not getting any exercise.

2)  I’m not getting much of anything done.

3)  My life is slipping away while I’m dreaming strange dreams instead of . . . doing something worthwhile and valuable and creative.  Like cleaning out the storage room or sorting through my top dresser drawer (you do NOT want to know) or writing something stunning.

The problem is that I have to have sleep.  And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to supplement a measly six hours a night with a morning nap before work.  In fact, in some ways it’s essential because I don’t think I’d be able to work until midnight the next night without getting enough rest.

It’s a conundrum, really.  I have a little bit of spare time (in the mornings) but I squander it.

I’ve also been cooking dinner each night and believe you me, that is cutting into my time between the cooking and the serving and the cleaning up afterward.  That consumes my evening allotment of spare time.  Buh-bye.  Please take your belongings with you as you depart the plane.

How am I to write The Pretty Good American Novel if I don’t have ten minutes to rub against each other?

Well, now it’s past 1:00 a.m.  So I’m going to sleep.  But I wanted you all (all five of you) to know why I haven’t been writing anything pithy and amusing and thought-provoking here.  Because that part of my brain is broken.  And also I just don’t have the time.

*yawn*

Continuing my trend of forgetting things, I completely failed to purchase and prepare snacks for my daughter’s soccer game tomorrow.  I have to provide sliced oranges for half-time and a post-game snack for the six girls on the team.  Hence, I will lose an hour of coveted Saturday morning sleep so I can rush to the grocery store first thing in the morning.  How lovely.

We have to be at the soccer field at 11:00 a.m.  Last Saturday, the girls played in fierce slanting rain–the knees of my jeans were totally soaked because how can you ward off slanting rain?  But the girls had a great time and, as usual, crushed the other team.  I feel sorry for every team we play because this little team of girls has a great coach and some natural ability.   Tomorrow they say there will be no rain.  I hope they are right.

My son has a football game which will dominate my husband’s day.  They’ll leave at 9 a.m. and return around 3 p.m.  Our son loves to play and my husband loves football.  He does love it more when he’s watching a college game from the comfort of his chair, but will come later in the day.

I am looking forward to the end of the soccer/football seasons.  Only three more weeks after this.

In other news, my twin teenagers invited two friends to sleep over, only very little sleep will be done.  I don’t understand why it’s so much more fun to play Guitar Hero in the middle of the night, but apparently it is.

A little while ago I went into the kitchen to get a drink of water.  I heard a keyboard begin to play, then a guitar begin to strum.  I rolled my eyes.  Surely the boys didn’t think that midnight would be a great time to play their instruments?  I headed toward their room to scold them and then realized that the music wafted from my computer.

A pox on websites that have automatic music playing!

(Yes, this is three blog posts in three days.  Be impressed.  Be very impressed.)

A day or two ago, my 11-year old son let me know that he needed a gray cape for school tomorrow. Why? Because he’s going to be “SuperZach” for Superhero Day at school. (Who makes these things up? Spirit Week? Why, why?)

That’s why I forgot to pick him and his friend up from school today. I completely lost my mind and drove to the fabric store under the foggy impression that today was Wednesday. My day to drive carpool is Thursday. So when my phone rang while I perused the sticker aisle at Joann Fabrics, I wondered why my neighbor might be calling me.

Her: “Hi, I couldn’t remember if we talked about pick-up today . . . my son has piano lessons and his teacher will be picking him up today . . . ”

Me: “Yes, but I thought that was on Thursday?”

Her: ” . . . ”

Me: “Oh.”

Her: “Today is Thursday.”

Me: “Oh no. I’m in the fabric store.”

So she had to drive out to the school to pick up my kid. Because I am befuddled and bewildered and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. I ought to lose my Mom license. I’ve already lost my mind.

In other news, my first-grader has started reading fluently and her teacher told me during our conference today that all she really lacks is confidence in her abilities. Her only issue is her tendency to chat. A lot.

She’s my hula-hooping, boy-chasing, jump-roping, picture-drawing entertainment. Today, she got a fortune in her fortune cookie that read: “Soon you will receive something you’ve wanted for a long time.” And she started hopping around the kitchen singing, “I’m getting a baby sister! I’m getting a baby sister!”

What a hoot, that one.

p.s. The only way she’s getting a baby sister is if I die and my husband marries the Octomom.

She had hiccups.  She could not stop talking about the hiccups.  Consequently, I could not stop listening to her talk about hiccups.  We were driving down the road, so I was captive to her chatter.

She repeated her talking points:

1)  I’ve had hiccups for a long time.

2)  Why do I have hiccups?

3)  What makes me hiccup?

I replied with bland answers:  “Oh, you have, huh?” and “Everyone gets hiccups sometimes” and “I’m not sure.”

Finally, though she demanded an answer:  “What makes me hiccup?”

And so, in exasperation, I said, “Your diaphragm has involuntary spasms causing you to hiccup.”

Silence filled the car.

Then:  “What?  Mom, I don’t even understand what you said.”

And I said with eye-rolling attitude, “Grace!  You are asking questions which have answers you cannot possibly understand!  Stop asking!  Please!”

As those words slipped out, I thought of how many questions I ask that have answers I cannot possibly understand.  Why did my dad die so young?  Why did my husband have cancer of the larynx of all things?  Why were we infertile–of all people?  Why did our friend Andrew die in Afghanistan when he was just 24?  Why, why, why?

I believe in God.  I believe in a God of answers, a God of justice, a God of mercy.  And I don’t understand so many things, just as my 7-year old doesn’t understand so many things.  I am a child of God, emphasis on the “child.”

Every once in awhile, I have a little glimpse of God as my Father and I imagine Him saying to me, “Melodee, you are asking questions which have answers you cannot possibly understand.  Just stop asking.”

I will trust that Someone has the answers, even if I can’t possibly understand.  That’s enough for now.

I’ve been home for two days now and haven’t cooked a decent dinner yet.  It’s not that I don’t want to cook a decent dinner.  The problem is a lack of planning and time.  Tomorrow I am going to plop some frozen chicken breasts into the Crock-pot first thing in the morning (at the crack of 9 a.m.) so we will have cooked protein around dinner-time.  Maybe I will even transform that into an actual meal, complete with vegetables and complex carbohydrates.  Imagine!  But don’t get too excited because it might not happen.

Tuesday nights are complicated.  I work until 5:00 p.m.  My son has to be at football practice at 5:30 p.m.  My daughter has to be at soccer practice at 6:00 p.m.  Tonight, my husband came home at 5 p.m. (early!) to take our son to practice. (And see?  How could I provide dinner to anyone when I wasn’t even home until 7:00 p.m.?)

You should know that at 4:00 p.m., I said to my son, “Do you know where your practice pants are?”  He said that, of course, he did.  And then, at 5:00 p.m., he did not.  He.  Did.  Not.  So, I sprang into action, upending laundry baskets, digging through folded clothes, pawing through dirty clothes.  As a last resort, I ran into my own room and asked my husband:  “Do you know where Zach’s pants are?”

“They are in the bottom of that basket.”

And sure enough, they were.  Filthy knees, possibly stinky.  I didn’t sniff.  And off he went to practice in dirty clothes.

Then, at 5:50 p.m., I said to my daughter, “We have to get ready!”  We hurried upstairs so she could pull on her shin guards and cleats.  Except, of course, that the cleats were gone.  The shin guards were neatly tucked into her closet next to all her lined up shoes.  Minus the soccer shoes.

I began a frantic search for the cleats.  I was gone when she wore them on Saturday and had no idea where they might be.  I expected them to be in the closet.

I ran laps in the house, searching in all the obvious and ridiculous places (under the kitchen table, inside the dirty laundry basket, on her bed).  I was sweaty and annoyed and frustrated.  Finally, at 6:05 p.m., I called my husband at football practice.  “Do you know where Grace’s soccer shoes are?”

“Oh yeah.  They’re in the van.”  The van he had with him at the football field.

That noise you heard at 6:05 p.m. PST was me screaming.

So, while we waited for him to deliver the shoes, we sat in the car outside in the driveway.  I checked the mailbox and found a small stack of mail.  I stood by the car and sorted it, then opened the first envelope.  And that is how I acquired a large, painful paper cut on my index finger.

We arrived at soccer practice fifteen minutes late.  My finger was still bleeding.  What did I do to deserve all this?  (Besides not cooking a proper dinner for days?)

Tomorrow, I am driving to a chalet in Mt. Baker with my friend, Cari.  We are joining a bunch of women on a scrapbooking retreat.  Scoff if you must, but my photographs are in chronological order from 1993 until 2005.

Aside from the scrapbooking, I intend to devote some time to writing my neglected novel.  I’m nearly half-way through.  I had been devoting all my Saturdays to writing, but then soccer and football games started and I haven’t had a Saturday to myself ever since.  So, during my forty-eight hours on the mountain, I hope to write.

I will put my photographs in scrapbooks during my writing breaks.

Also?  I will breathe in crisp mountain air and walk on mountain trails.

So, you can see I’ve got my work cut out for me.  And that’s why I have no more time to devote to this blog entry.  I must sleep so I can wake up, load the dishwasher, pack some clothes, find the notes for my novel, shove my laptop into its bag, lug the scrapbooking supplies and photographs to the car-trunk, throw some clothes into the dryer, and remember to take my pillow with me so I can sleep while I”m gone.   Also?  I have to go pick up Cari.

I feel utterly guilty leaving my family for forty-eight hours.  But I’m going anyway.

Have a great weekend!  (And thanks for all the nice comments on my previous entry.  Someday I’ll get around to answering your comments which appear in my email box.)

I started blogging on October 11, 2003.  Here’s the post.  I had about twelve readers, online friends I knew from a pregnancy message board.  I remember the first comment I got from a stranger.  I was freaked out and a little outraged that a stranger would leave me a comment.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I didn’t even really understand what a blog was, nor did I know that so many blogs existed.

I used to write with wild abandon since no one in my real world knew about my blog other than my husband.  I described my days (often full of snot and cabin fever) and my feelings and my opinions about whatever.  I obsessively checked my statistics to see how many visitors I had, where they came from, how long they stayed.  I clicked on other blogs, built my blogroll, left comments wherever I went.  I was a Blogger.  I blogged pretty much every day.

Being a plain old blogger led me to being a paid blogger and my stint at Clubmom.com.  That job led me to unveil my secret blogging life to some people in my real world.  And suddenly, I felt like I was writing on an overhead projector.  My blog became less private, less of a haven.

Now, six years later, my online world has become very public.  My Twitter leads to my Facebook which links to my blog.  My children are my Facebook friends.  My mother reads my blogs.  Other Facebook friends (college buddies, childhood acquaintances, the neighbor down the street, etc.) have access to every blog entry.  People from church–both old and new–can stop by and read my blog whenever fancy strikes.  The category of things I no longer talk about has grown exponentially leaving me to wonder what, exactly, I can possibly talk about.  (Things Not To Talk About:  Teenagers, Family, Job, Church, Marriage, Politics . . .).

I’ve been working online for a website full-time for almost two years.  I have hardly any time at all to read blogs and I rarely leave comments.  I know my pool of readers has trickled away even though I never, ever check my stats any more.  I can tell because I have so few commenters anymore.  It’s a far cry from the hey-day when I’d have thirty or forty comments on a post.

It’s kind of sad. And I sort of don’t care.  Except when I do care.

I think about starting over, a brand new, super anonymous blog, but then, I’d have no readers.  And why write if no one reads it?  (Catharsis alone?)  Plus, I don’t have time.  And my brain has dried up like a raisin, all wrinkled and gummy.

I’m never going to start another blog, though.  (Never say never, but I say never.)

Really successful blogs have a plot.  Or a deliberate purpose.  This blog has neither.  But it’s mine and we have a long history together, sort of like a relative you have to invite over for Thanksgiving.  (Disclaimer:  Not that I’m talking about My Relatives or My Thanksgiving.  Obviously.  Maybe yours, though.)

And yeah, I know there will be no comments because my blog is a vacant lot and what is there to say, really, to this sort of an entry?  But on the positive side, at least I’ve managed to come up with something to say without offending anyone I actually know.  Unless you are offended and I know you.

Also?  Yoko Ono annoys me.  Who knew?

My husband likes to remind me that my life is most likely half over.  I suppose this is meant to spur me to a greater appreciation of life and deepen my desire to absorb every moment, but really, it just makes me feel old.

I’m at that age when I see a college student and think he must be in junior high.  I cannot believe that professionals–doctors, even–are young enough to be my children (if I’d been a teenage mother).  My college friends have kids in college and the very thought of that blows my mind.

When I study my face closely in the mirror, I can’t help but notice the soft wrinkles gathered around my eyes.  I’m losing elasticity while sprouting gray hair at my temples.  I fear that my back will refuse to bend without warning.  I am all age spots and spider veins.

I feel old and tired.  Even though I’m just middle-aged and sleep-deprived.

I think these thoughts at every change of the seasons.  Today, a chilly wind accompanied us to school.  Summer has evaporated leaving only cold sunshine and a promise of rain tomorrow.

The ending of each season propels me closer to The End.  And I really, really, really hope the story of my life will be told with gusto and humor and compassion before that final page.

But today I am boring and tired and uninteresting, unworthy.  My daughter, however, is beginning to read, has mastered Yahtzee and has the most perfect blond ringlets.  She brings laughter and recognition to my days.

She is sunshine and rainbows.  I am fog.  I am tired fog, in need of immediate sleep.